


I Can See Clearly Now

by Kachelofen



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-21 18:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 80,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kachelofen/pseuds/Kachelofen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a sequel to <i>Trying To Make Some Sense Of It All</i> and therefore still an INVERTED AU. (You should probably read the prequel to make some sense of this one at all. :-D) It is set four years later. Brian has just started his last year at college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of wanting to explore one or two things which didn’t fit into the prequel. All the things from the previous A/N are still true: enough sex to be NC-17, not enough to be porn, quotes from the show, plotlines from the show and all of it jumbled together into a big mess.
> 
> The title is taken from the song by Johnny Nash.

**PART  ONE**

Woody’s is almost deserted when I get there, which is only to be expected, since it is barely past opening time. I take a quick look around and, not seeing whom I’m looking for, walk up to the bar and order two bottles of beer. Even though it’s empty now, I know it’s not going to stay that way for long, so I select the most out-of-the-way table and slide onto the stool that affords me a view of the door.

One of the guys at the bar is eyeing me with interest. I ignore him. The second bottle on the table should clue him in to the fact that I’m waiting for someone, but I know that in this place that isn’t necessarily going to deter him from coming over. After about a minute, I can see him out of the corner of my eyes as he grabs his drink to make a move on me, but I’m saved by Melanie coming through the door and making a beeline for me. The guy at the bar gives me a disgusted look and casts about for a new target.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Melanie says, taking off the jacket of her power suit and draping it over the back of the chair next to hers. Still rolling up the sleeves of her blouse, she sits down opposite me and grabs the other bottle, taking a long drink.

“I just got here myself.” I smile at her.

“God, what a day.” She is moaning down the drink appreciatively. “I didn’t even have time to go home to get changed.”

“Don’t worry, I rarely pay attention to what women wear. Now, guys on the other hand... I swear that redhead in the corner is wearing the tightest pants I’ve ever seen. Not really recommended with the small package he’s got.”

Melanie huffs out a laugh. “You’re getting more like your boyfriend by the day.”

“Is that a bad thing?” It’s out before I remember whom I’m talking to. I cringe inwardly.

“Yeah, actually, it is.”

We’re quiet for an awkward moment. I like Melanie, I really do, but her animosity towards Brian sometimes makes it difficult to have a conversation. It’s not even as if she’s the only person in my life criticizing him, but she is certainly the most vocal.

“Where’s Lindsay?” I ask, changing the subject. Melanie and Lindsay have been together for over four years now, only a few months more than Brian and I, and that’s not the only thing we have in common.

“I assume she’s at the same place Brian is. Isn’t she always?”

“I hope  not,” I chuckle, thinking of some of the places Brian frequents. Not quite the right scene for someone of Lindsay’s upbringing and disposition. Not that I don’t agree with Melanie that Lindsay would probably follow Brian anywhere. Sometimes it seems that Brian simply swapped Michael for Lindsay when he started college. At least, they seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time together.

Finally, Melanie relaxes enough to laugh. She has been really stressed out for a while now because she’s in line to make partner at the law firm where she works. It makes her a little cranky.

“Yeah,” she agrees, drinking some more of her beer. “I asked Lindsay to move in with me.”

“Really? What did she say?”

“She said yes. Or rather, she said she will, after graduation.”

“Graduation? The year just started. Graduation won’t be till May.”

“I know,” she sighs. “But she wants to stay in the dorms till then. We also talked about having a baby.”

I stare at her. Melanie is so butch it’s hard to imagine her being maternal.

“Do you ever think about having a family?” she asks.

I have to laugh. “With Brian? I don’t think he’s ready.”

“Do you think he’ll ever be?” It comes out in a dismissive tone.

I shrug. Much as it pains me to admit it, she’s right. Brian hasn’t really changed much in the four years that we’ve been together. I can’t even be completely certain that he considers us as ‘being together’. He behaves very much like he’s single.

“Have you never thought about it?” she chases up her first question.

“Sometimes,” I admit. “I may want a child of my own one day. But I reckon I have time. And it’s not as easy as it is for you guys. All you have to do is go to the sperm bank.”

She nods a few times and sighs. “Yeah, Lindsay doesn’t want to do that. She says it’s too impersonal. She wants to have a child with someone we know.”

I shrug again. “Makes sense.”

Melanie is looking at me over the top of her bottle for a while and I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. “This is not why you asked me to meet with you, is it?” I ask.

“Well, it kind of is.”

Oh, crap. I didn’t see that one coming. “You want me to do the honors?”

“Well, Lindsay wants Brian.”

Unfortunately, I am just taking a sip of my drink when she says it and, predictably, I choke on it, cough and spray some over the table. Melanie leans as far back in her seat as she can to avoid getting any of it on her clothes and laughs at me. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too.”

“He’s twenty-one,” I say, realizing almost immediately how irrelevant that is in the grand scheme of things.

“Well, Lindsay’s only a year older.”

I take the cardboard coaster and try to wipe up the droplets of beer, succeeding only in spreading them evenly over the table.

“Are you sure Lindsay’s ready? I mean, you guys aren’t even living together yet and you want to bring a child into the mix. What if you two don’t work out?”

“I’m thirty-two, Justin. I don’t want to be in my dotage when we have a child.  Lindsay’s ready. She just needs to get out of that college environment. That makes anyone act immature.”

Her words in God’s ear because it certainly makes Brian act like a brat most of the time. Just like Melanie with Lindsay, I’m hoping that starting work next year will calm him down a little.

“Still, I don’t know,” I say. “Are you sure you’ve thought this through? How’s Lindsay gonna support you? And is this wise right now, when you’re going to make partner?” Even as I say it, I feel a little stupid because Melanie always thinks things through. She’s the most meticulous person I know, other than maybe Ted. If she says they can work out a way, then they can.

“Lindsay won’t be supporting us,” Melanie starts, then sighs. “Sorry, Justin, I’m doing this all wrong.  The fact is, I can’t have kids. I have endometriosis.”

Yeah, whatever that is. Presumably something that prevents you from becoming pregnant. I wonder if I should commiserate her. Women get upset when they can’t have kids, don’t they? Wait a minute, if Melanie can’t have kids, that means… I lean back in my chair as if that will stop her from looking at me beseechingly. “No,” I say, a little louder than intended and I tone it down, if only in volume. “No.  I’m not having a kid with Lindsay.”

“Why not?” Melanie seems genuinely perplexed.

_Because I don’t want to have a child with a twenty-two year old. Because she’s incredibly naïve. Because I don’t trust her. Because she’s in love with my boyfriend._

I can’t tell Melanie any of these things because she thinks of Lindsay as the second coming – no pun intended. “With you, I would think about it, Mel. With Lindsay, it’s a definite no.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “I don’t know her well enough.”

She laughs. “You’ve known her for four years.”

“ _You’ve_ known her for four years. I barely ever see her.” And when I do, she’s usually giggling in a corner somewhere with Brian – not that Brian does any of the giggling. But it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me that she’s ready for parenthood. Sometimes she doesn’t even seem ready for a relationship. I’m not sure if she has quite made up her mind whether she’s a lesbian either. I’m not holding any of that against her as a person, but as the mother of my child? No way. For that I’d like someone a little more mature.

Melanie looks disappointed.

“I’m sorry, Mel, but no.”

“Well, I’m not having Brian.” Which begs the question whether Lindsay has even agreed to this plan yet. I can well imagine her favoring Brian. She’s so obviously smitten with him. I don’t know how Melanie can stand it. She says it’s just a phase that Lindsay needs to go through, like a rite of passage or something and that it has a lot to do with being in college still and not having come out to her parents yet. But even if all that is true, I would hope that if Brian showed obvious signs of wanting to be with someone else, I would be long gone.

Last weekend for example, Lindsay took Brian to her sister’s wedding as her date. Of course, she couldn’t take Melanie as her date, but if I had a boyfriend even before I came out, I would have brought him and passed him off as a friend, if need be, not brought a beard. I would have wanted to be with my boyfriend. But with Lindsay, it’s obvious that she didn’t just do it to placate her family, but rather enjoyed having Brian there and dreamed of that situation being the reality.

Brian told me that the food was excellent, that there was an open bar and that he fucked one of the ushers. So he enjoyed himself, too. Luckily he had enough consideration for Lindsay to be discrete and he arrived and left with her. He’s very attached to her for reasons that I have yet to work out, but there was no point in the last three years, where I was worried. Lindsay might be confused. Brian is not.

“Are you hoping to get married?” I ask, changing the subject once more. Our conversation seems to be full of landmines today, which is unusual for us. From being fellow members of the GLC and working on projects together, we’ve progressed to bonding over having a relationship with a much younger partner, sometimes including Ben in our circle. Out of the three of us, Ben probably has the least problems because Michael seems happy enough to settle, whereas Brian and Lindsay are living college life to the fullest. We’re stuck with the ironic state of affairs where both, Ben and Melanie, have to cope with their partners having a crush on my boyfriend, whereas I ‘only’ have to worry about every hot guy in town. On the whole, I prefer my situation. At least I can be certain that Brian doesn’t pine after someone else.

“Marriage is a bankrupt institution. I don’t think a meaningless heterosexual ritual would improve our love and it wouldn’t be legal anyway.”

I have to laugh. If she hadn’t put the word ‘love’ in there, it could have come straight out of Brian’s mouth. Even without Lindsay in the mix, Melanie and Brian could never be friends because they’re just so damn similar.

I feel the same way about marriage. After seeing my parents and most of my parents’ friends divorce, I have no illusions that a piece of paper would hold together a relationship that has broken down, nor that it should. I’m with Brian on that one, better to be together because you want to be. And I have at least that. I know that when Brian is with me, it’s what he wants – because there are plenty of other times, when he doesn’t want to and isn’t there.

But I would like what the spirit of a marriage represents, the absolute commitment to just one person, wanting to spend the rest of your life with him and, yes, forsaking all others, too – eventually. But I don’t need to get married for that, especially as it’s not legal anyway. I just want the commitment or, quite frankly, at the moment, I would settle for open acknowledgement. So far, the best I got in four years is a, ‘this is the guy I fuck more than once.’

“Do _you_ want to get married?” Melanie asks.

I shake my head. “No, not really,” I say and leave it at that. No use discussing this with her. It will only lead to her telling me that I need to find a different partner if I ever want to be truly happy. I’ve heard it enough times. The thing is, I honestly believe that I will never be truly happy with a different partner. Only, I can’t be sure that I ever will be that with the one I have either.

“He might grow up eventually,” she says unexpectedly, her smile soft. But I know she’s only saying it to make me feel better, not because she actually believes it. She wrote Brian off as a bad bet ages ago, probably the first time they ever met. And with the way Lindsay is at the moment, I doubt that’ll ever change now.

Melanie turns around to follow my gaze when I get distracted by Brian entering Woody’s and making his way towards the bar a little unsteadily. About halfway there, he notices us and turns towards our table, almost stumbling at the sudden change of direction. “Or not,” she adds sarcastically.

Brian hones in on me, completely ignoring Melanie, and I can smell the alcohol on him before he’s even close enough to kiss me. Which he does, with a lot of tongue, one hand at the back of my neck as if he’s afraid I might pull away, the other cupping my crotch. The kiss is deep and long and very wet, but I can’t enjoy it as much as I normally would because I’m too self-conscious about Melanie being here and disapproving, which is probably why he’s doing this in the first place. And I’m embarrassed for him because he’s so obviously fall-down drunk. My first instinct is to get him home.

“Men’s room,“ he says, loud enough for anybody in the vicinity to hear, which is undoubtedly his intention. He’s always more bratty when Melanie is around.

“I’m not alone,” I say with a smile. I’m wondering if he would even make it as far as the restroom because he’s leaning heavily on me by now.

“Ah yes,“ he says, looking Mel up and down as if she’s a particularly loathsome insect, a look that she mirrors completely, only she seems horrified at the same time. “Smelly Melly.” He laughs a little and I decide that I should really get him home as soon as possible. “Where’s your wife?” His words are slurred like they hardly ever are, even when he’s drunk and high. He must have consumed way more than his usual amount.

“Don’t _you_ know?” she shoots back. “You see her more than I do.”

I should get him out of here before these two get into a fist fight – which Brian would probably lose in his current state.

“Yeah. You’re not a very good warden, are you?” he needles her on.

Uh-oh, now I know why he’s so drunk. He’s seen or heard from either of his parents. The word ‘warden’ is like a huge neon sign flashing a warning at me to beware. Any contact with his parents always leads to him lashing out at the nearest target.

Melanie just looks askance and wisely decides to ignore him. “Do you need any help, Justin?”

“No, we’re fine,” I say and slide off the stool very gently so that I don’t dislodge Brian from my shoulders in the process. “Com’ on, Brian, let’s go.”

“Yeah, the men’s room.” He nods a few times, but when I start to pull him towards the door, he follows me without much resistance. He has drunk his way past belligerence and into compliance. If I can get him home before he hits the passing out phase, everything will be fine.

Melanie follows us out silently and watches me maneuver Brian into the passenger seat of the jeep. “Will you think about what we talked about?” she asks, eyeing Brian with disgust, as he loudly bemoans the fact that there will be a delay before he will have his much needed fuck.

“Sure,” I say, mainly to pacify her because I really need to get home before Brian falls asleep in the car.

“You say that,” Brian grouches, thinking my answer was meant for him. “But I don’t see your ass getting naked or your lips round my cock or… you’ve too many clothes on.”

“I’ll call you,” I tell Melanie and slide into the driver’s seat before she can become aware that Brian has now started to unzip his jeans to move the proceedings along. As I lean over him to plug his seat belt in, he pushes at my shoulders a little to encourage me to give him a blowjob right here, but it’s ineffective because he’s way too drunk.

I open all the windows as I drive the short way to the loft. Brian leans his face into the cool air, his pants’ half-open state forgotten. For a moment I fear he may have fallen asleep, in which case I may have to call Emmett or Michael to help me get him upstairs, but when I stop at the loft, he comes out of his stupor a little and looks around. “Where are we?”

“Home.”

He fiddles with the seat belt, appearing extraordinarily pleased with himself when it comes undone after I manage to push the release without him noticing. I have to smile. Jogging around to his side of the car, I get there just as his knees are buckling a little when he gets out. But the car door is supporting him and he manages to stand upright more or less on his own.

In the rickety elevator, he leans against the wall, his arms spread to both sides for balance. “Home,” he says with his eyes closed.

“Yes, Brian,” I say with a smile.

“Much better than the men’s room.”

“Yes, Brian.”

He’s trying to molest me all the way to the bedroom, which we reach via a detour to the fridge to get him a bottle of water, but he’s so uncoordinated that, in the end, he just allows me to lead him to the bed. He grins at me when I start to undress him and drinks his water when prompted. His cock is only half-hard and I doubt that he would be capable of doing much with it if he tried. As it is, he’s happy enough to get under the covers and is asleep within minutes. 

When he gets up an hour later to be sick in the toilet, I'm still awake. I can hear him brush his teeth and drink about a gallon of water, before he returns to bed, pushes up close to me and is asleep again after a few moments. I’m wondering what his parents did this time.

 

*******

 

When I come out of the shower, Lindsay’s on the phone – my phone. I don’t mind her borrowing stuff from me, wearing my clothes and even stealing food off my plate in the cafeteria, but I draw the line at answering my phone. I have photos on there that are nobody’s business. Justin would hit the roof if I let anyone see them.

“Here he is,” she says to whoever is on the other end of the line and hands me the phone.

I turn my back on her before she can say anything and even walk a few steps away, towards the window, although that doesn’t afford me much more privacy in my small dorm room. And then I wish I had let her tell me who is on the line, so that I would have had a few seconds to prepare.

_“Brian? It’s Claire.”_

“What’s up?” The air in the room seems stuffy all of a sudden and I open the window with one hand. It’s not as if Claire never calls me. I go round there occasionally for dinner, when the mood strikes me, although the intervals between visits have increased over time, as she’s turning more and more into a copy of Mom. But there’s something in her voice that sets me on edge.

_“When did you see Daddy last?”_

“About two months ago. Why?”

_“He collapsed at work on Wednesday. He’s in the hospital.”_

“What happened? He fall down drunk?” Fuck, he’s going to lose his job again.

 _“Brian.”_ She sounds tired, as she does every time I speak to her. _“Mom didn’t want me to tell you but… Daddy has cancer. You should go and see him.”_

I feel kind of sucker punched, which is very appropriate when you think about it. “What for? There’s nothing _I_ can do about it.”

_“Brian… he doesn’t have long… just days probably.”_

“What? How come? You don’t keel over one day and be at death’s door without warning. There are signs and…”

 _“I didn’t know, okay?”_ She’s crying now and it has the usual effect on me of wanting to make it stop, in any way I can. “ _They didn’t tell me either, but Mom and Daddy have known for months. They didn’t want us to know.”_

“I see.” I stare out of the window at the block of dorms opposite, where this girl always forgets to draw her curtains before she gets changed. Okay, so judging by the looks she gives me, she doesn’t exactly forget. Someone should tell her I’m not interested. But she’s not there today, so I don’t even have that distraction.

Behind me, Lindsay‘s gone very still. She always seems to be able to read my moods, almost like Justin, only, she’s clueless how to react half the time. I glance over my shoulder and she’s just standing there with one of my t-shirts in her hand, which she was just folding up neatly. She likes to tidy my room and since she’s even neater than I am, I let her. It makes her happy for some reason and saves me doing it. Everybody wins.

Claire takes my silence as a sign of agreement and starts rattling off directions to the hospital, complete with room number and visiting hours. “ _Don’t leave it too long,”_ she says quietly, no longer crying now.

“I’ll think about it.”

_“Brian…”_

“I said I’ll think about it.”

She sighs again and then says goodbye hurriedly to the wails of one of her kids in the background.

I close the phone and stare into space until I can feel Lindsay approaching. That makes me go over to the cupboard and start getting dressed. I know she won’t come near me when I’m naked. That usually makes her blush and pretend she’s not looking, when I know she is. Women are not so different from guys. Lindsay’s reactions to me are almost identical to Michael's.

“Did anything happen?” she asks from her position by my desk. 

“Nothing important.” I _could_ tell her. She met Jack once, while we were shopping at the Big Q. He obviously assumed she was my girlfriend, which didn’t stop him from undressing her with his eyes and grinning his approval at me. It was fucking embarrassing. “I need to do something today.”

“We have class in thirty-five minutes.” Her voice is scandalized as if this is the first time I’ve ever cut class. Hell, she’s cut enough classes with me, until she failed her Art in the Media course last year.

I’m dressed now and I go over to her and take my folded t-shirt out of her hands. “Go to class, Lindsay. I’ve got shit to do.”

She looks hurt. “Did something happen to your parents? Is there something I can do?”

“Yes, there is. Go to class.” And leave me the fuck alone. I can’t deal with her right now.

She nods, strokes my cheek and makes her way to the door. “Meet you in the cafeteria for lunch?”

“We’ll see.” I know that there’s no way I’ll be in the cafeteria today, but this is the best way to avoid a discussion and still not commit myself to anything. I just want to be alone for a bit. Is that too much to ask?

“I’m always here for you, Brian, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know. See you later.”

She nods again and is finally gone. I stare out of the window and light my first cigarette of the day. Fuck. What shall I do now?

After the second cigarette, I change into my gear and go out to the field. I used to run track at school, mainly to have a second leg to stand on if I messed up on my SATs, but when it became obvious that I would get a scholarship with my grades, I cut back on the running. It took up too much time. Since I’ve got into Pitt, I’ve been running cross country a bit. They have a beautiful track here, that cuts through the grounds and some woods and brings you back to the starting point after ten kilometers. I like running it before exams because it clears my head.

Despite the warm weather, the track is empty and that suits me just fine. The really serious runners run early in the morning, before classes and then again in the afternoon and the evening. Nobody’s around at this time. I start at a slow pace, in long strides, pacing myself. I have the right build for running, long legs and barely any body fat, just perfect. It gives me the exercise to keep it that way and it’s free. As I reach the woods, I can feel the tension falling away from me and my body settling into the rhythm.

I’m not supposed to be tense. The news that Jack is sick and may be dying shouldn’t bother me at all. It’s not as if he was ever very fond of me or I of him. Over the last couple of years, I’ve seen him sporadically when I’ve gone to visit him at his club. He usually drinks with me until he’s well and truly drunk and lets me pay his tab. After the first time, I’ve always made sure that I have a decent amount of money on me. I don’t even know why I bother to see him. I haven’t seen Mom since I moved out of my parents’ home.

Jack always brags to his friends that I’m at college now and that I’m going places. Too right, I am. Places that are far away from here, like New York, where I won’t be tempted to ever go and see him again. Well, it looks like that won’t be an issue much longer anyway.

Justin talks about his dad sometimes. He always speaks of him in that wistful way that people have when they remember their childhood fondly. He also says that his father changed over the years, or that maybe he became aware more and more that his father wasn’t the man he had thought he was when he was a child. Craig certainly did some despicable things to Justin where money was concerned and appears to have been pretty judgmental in general. Justin’s biggest regret is that he never told his dad that he is gay.

Personally, I don’t get what Justin thinks it would have accomplished. It’s obvious that his father was as homophobic as mine is. No good would have come from telling him and still Justin insists that he wishes he had told him. Not for his father’s sake but his own, so that he would know that his father truly knew him. I can’t say that I understand it, and whenever Justin encourages me to tell my parents that I’m gay, I laugh at him and change the subject. It’s not as if I don’t know how Jack will react. It’s a foregone conclusion.

When I finish the track, I’ve come to a decision. Back to my room, I take another shower, eat a sandwich and then lie on my bed to smoke for a couple of hours, finishing up with a joint I’ve saved up to start off the weekend tonight. I must get some more supplies, but it’s near the end of the month and things are tight. I can get a lot of stuff from Justin when I’m short, but drugs aren’t included in that. Justin never buys drugs. I’m not sure if he’d know how to go about it if he wanted to.

It takes me forty-five minutes on the bus to get to the hospital. I wonder if Mom will be there or if she will stick to her routine and go to that church thing she goes to on Friday afternoons. I’m passing the journey debating whether she would get extra sympathy from her church cronies for having a sick husband and praying for him or whether they would find her being at church and not at her husband’s bedside disgraceful. Is going to church and praying for your loved one more praiseworthy than giving actual support or is it the other way around? You never know with these religious types.

When I arrive, there’s no one about. Jack is in a large room with six beds, but he’s in a corner and the bed next to him is unoccupied, so we have some privacy. He looks smaller than I remember him, very pale and his breathing is labored. There’s an IV drip with some fluid of a yellowish-green color that looks more toxic than medicinal to me.

He greets me as if we only just saw each other recently, calls my Sonnyboy and doesn’t question why I’m here or who told me. He’s strangely resigned to his fate and I want to shake him in anger for keeping his illness from his children, but we don’t mention him being sick at all. I can feel my heart beating wildly and I feel as sick as he looks throughout my short visit.

When I leave the hospital, my ears are ringing with his words, which left me in no doubt about his opinion of me, despite being hissed with some effort and followed by a coughing fit. I light another cigarette and start walking.

I’m already tired from my run this morning and I reach the loft after more than two hours. Justin isn’t home yet, although his last class finished an hour ago. I try to ignore the fact that I somehow memorized his schedule and my feeling of frustration that he’s not here. There’s no reason why he should be. Ordinarily, my classes wouldn’t be finished for another hour and even if that wasn’t the case, there’s no reason why he should expect me to come here. We’ve made no arrangements and I’m not expecting him to wait for me like a good little wife, just like he doesn’t expect me to turn up on a schedule. We’re both free to do whatever we like.

I wait around smoking for a little while and then, as time drags on, I make a start on his bar. Justin may not have drugs around, but his supply of alcohol is almost unlimited. He likes the good stuff and the bottle of Chivas goes down like water. There’s still no sign of Justin. I may as well go out and have a drink or two at Woody’s. I’m fucking horny as well.

When I get outside, the warm air makes me more drunk rather than sober me up. I’m vaguely aware that my limbs don’t work as well as I am accustomed to. Maybe I should have eaten more than that one sandwich today. But I make it to Woody’s all right. Okay, maybe all right is an exaggeration, but I get there somehow and I’m in luck. Justin is sitting at one of the tables and when I get to him, there’s no longer any need to watch what I’m doing. Justin will look after me now. When he’s around, I’m as safe as… whatever’s really safe. I can relax and I’ll get my fuck into the bargain. I let the pleasant alcoholic haze settle over me.

 

 

There are only two places I wake up in nowadays. One is my dorm room and the other is the loft. Apart from having more room in the bed, I always know I’m at Justin’s because it feels different, more relaxed somehow. Must be because I tend to sleep here when I have plenty of time the next morning.

I pat the space next to me and come up with nothing but cold sheets. He must have got up a while ago. My head is pounding and my throat feels like I have given someone a  particularly vigorous blowjob and my mouth tastes like it, too. Or maybe I was sick in the night. I open one eye and see a bottle of water on the bedside table, the outside misted up and pearling with condensation still.

 _Thank you, Justin_. My hand blindly fumbles around the surface of the bedside table until they come upon two Advil, which I knew Justin would have left there for me. I dry swallow them, which leads my throat to protest in no uncertain terms about the mistreatment and I soothe it down with the contents of the bottle. Trying to go back to sleep is hampered by needing to piss too desperately to get comfortable, so I stumble into the bathroom.

When I come out of the shower, Justin is in the kitchen making breakfast. The smell of scrambled eggs alone makes me feel ravenous and I saunter over with just a towel around my hips. I refrained from jerking off in the shower because I anticipate a fuck in my near future and any clothes I might put on will only lead to an unnecessary delay.

“Hey,” he says, piling the eggs onto two plates and adding slices of toast. He must have been out because there’s a Starbucks coffee next to my plate.

“Hey, yourself.” I slide onto one of the stools and dig into my food.

Justin eats a little and picks his toast apart with his fingers, watching me. It makes me want to get up and leave. I rack my brain to try and remember what I said to him last night.

“How’s your dad?” he asks finally and as usual he’s getting straight to the point. Well, at least this way it will be quick and painless. Or quick and painful.

“Dying.”

Justin’s fork clutters onto his plate. “What? Is this one of your misguided attempts at humor?”

“Hey. I resent that. I’m a very funny guy. People roll around laughing at my jokes.”

“Yeah, you’re funny all right. And you’re also trying to change the subject. Is your dad really sick? Dying, even?”

“Yeah.” I tell him about Claire’s phone call and my visit to the hospital yesterday. Over time I got so used to telling Justin stuff that it’s almost normal for me nowadays. Of course, I stick to the mere facts. I always do. As long as he doesn’t expect me to talk about my feelings, we’re all right. He’s happy that I confide in him and it usually makes me feel better as well.

“So how long has he got?”

“How the fuck would I know? He looks like he’s on death’s door already, but he looks like that when he’s really drunk, too, so there’s no telling.”

“Brian,” he says and then stops. What could he possibly say anyway? And I haven’t even told him the worst part yet. Then he carries on, his voice soft and his eyes gentle. I hate it when he does that, treats me like I need ‘handling’. “Did you manage to say goodbye?”

I frown at him. What the fuck does that even mean? “No, but he certainly did.”

“Oh God, what did he say?”

“I followed your advice,” I start and give him a false smile that tips him off immediately. He looks at me like he knows he’s not going to like what I’m going to say. “I told him I’m gay and he told me that I should be the one dying.”

I take a vicious satisfaction in seeing him blanch. Well, it’s all his fault anyway. He’s been the one telling me for a long time to come out to my parents. So he should be the one to suffer the consequences, not me. I would have been quite happy to let Jack go to his grave not knowing. But no, Justin thought it would be good for me to tell him. There was never any fucking chance that it would be good for anybody.

Justin is speechless for a while, which is so rare that it’s a victory in itself. Let’s see how he spins this one into something positive because he always seems to manage to do that. Or he tries to at least.

“He never deserved you, you know that, right?” Justin says after a long pause and I just laugh. There’s no humor in it.

“No, he got exactly what he deserved.”

Justin comes around the kitchen island and wraps his arms around me from behind. “Don’t say stuff like that, Brian. Your parents are wrong. They’ve always been wrong. You’re so much more than they deserve.”

The funny thing is that he really means it. He thinks that people who don’t like me, simply don’t know me or if they do, they don’t understand me. Nothing seems to sway him from that. He doesn’t care that I put Ted in a coma or endangered Michael's life, never mind that I nearly killed him four years ago. And I’m sure that he’s disappointed in me most days, but he never wavers in his belief in me. Only he doesn’t see me, he sees someone who could be a great guy, and he ignores all the evidence to the contrary. It’s tiring trying to live up to his image of me, knowing that one day he’ll realize his mistake.

“Justin?”

“Hhm?”

“Did we fuck last night?”

As he’s leaning against my naked back I can feel him stiffen, and not in a good way. He sighs. “No,” he says quietly. “You passed out.” I’m sure that sigh was less about his regret for the missed opportunity for sex and more about my changing the subject. He will see me eventually. I can’t play this game forever.

“You wanna make up for that?”

He chuckles a little and kisses me just below my right shoulder blade, softly at first, then licking a line there and gently blowing air onto it, before sucking on the same spot. I take that as a yes then.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**PART  TWO**

When Brian tells me what his father said to him, I feel incredibly guilty for encouraging him to come out. What the hell did I think would happen? I suppose, it was just lucky that Jack was so sick, otherwise Brian might have felt his fists. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined Jack’s reaction being so vicious. Who would say something like that to their own child?

But it isn’t about Jack. It’s about Brian. I don’t want him to feel the way I do all his life. My father ruled our family not with an iron fist but an iron will. It was always his way or no way. He never hit any of us, but he would shout and snarl at us if we stepped out of line and then ignore us until we gave in. When I was a child, I always wanted to make him proud of me. He didn’t have to tell me that I was a disappointment to him, I just knew. I was scared all the time to lose what little approval I got and the last vestiges of his love, too. So I never came out to him and I have regretted it ever since the day he died.

Brian is much braver than I ever was. He’s out and proud with no regard for how difficult that makes his life sometimes. He stands up to the bullies and mocks the people who disapprove on the quiet. He doesn’t believe in letting sleeping dogs lie. But what good is that going to do him in the long run, if he doesn’t stand up to the one person he fears the most, no matter how much he pretends that he doesn’t? At least, this way he will eventually be proud of himself for speaking up.

He says that he was so angry that he reminded his father that he was the one dying and how at that moment he was actually glad about that. He also tells me that he might have hit his father if he hadn’t been so sick. Brian can be vicious and angry when he gets hurt, but he’s not a violent person. I can only imagine how upset he must have been to feel that way. And how guilty he feels about that now. Personally, I think Jack would have deserved it. I hate the man, which is pointless since he’s dead now.

Jack dies five days after Brian’s visit. As far as I know, Brian never goes back to see him again, but I can’t be sure. I hardly see him in those days. His phone’s switched off most of the time and he doesn’t answer any of my messages. What he does do is come to the loft late at night a couple of times to fuck me into the early hours of the morning, but he blocks all my attempts at conversation.

The third time he comes over, he gets dressed in his Hugo Boss suit in the morning and when I ask him what the occasion is, he tells me that it’s his father’s funeral. This is the first time I hear that his father has died. Normally Brian shares at least the bare facts of what’s going on in his life with me. I can only assume that he blames me for his father’s reaction to his coming out. I should have learned by now that what is right for me may not be right for Brian. I can only hope that eventually he will be glad that he did it.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I know it will probably bring more trouble than comfort if he takes me along, but I want to be there for him. No matter how much he pretends not to care, it must be a difficult time for him.

“No.” He doesn’t even attempt to soften the blow. In fact he doesn’t seem to be aware that it _is_ a blow to me.

“Are you going on your own?”

“No.” That’s good. I don’t want him to be alone. If he doesn’t want to take me, he _should_ take Michael. That won’t be too obvious, since Michael has been his best friend for years and actually knew Jack and knows Brian’s mother as well. Still, I can’t help feeling a little disappointed that he prefers Michael's company to mine.

“Do you want the Jeep?”

“’S all right. We’re taking Lindsay’s Beemer.”

That stops me in my tracks. I’m sitting on the bed, watching him fiddle with his tie in the mirror, looking stunning as he always does. He’s completely focused on his appearance, probably not even aware that I’m in the room, never mind how I feel about what he’s doing.

“You’re taking Lindsay?”

“She offered. And she looks good in black.” He sounds like he’s talking about some party he’s going to.

“Brian, it’s your dad’s funeral.”

“So? Who cares? He was old. It was his time.”

Jack couldn’t have been much older than fifty, if he was that. Maybe that really feels old to someone Brian’s age, but at thirty-three, it doesn’t seem so very old to me. I can’t quite imagine being that old yet, nor do I want to, but I have at least accepted that it’s going to happen one day.

“Why are you taking Lindsay?”

“Maybe because she doesn’t ask me so many fucking questions all the time.” He’s angry now, which is a sure sign that he’s not entirely happy with the arrangement either.

I watch him silently, as he picks up his wallet and his cellphone and stalks towards the door. I don’t want to make an already trying day worse for him by voicing my misgivings, so I catch up with him as he’s just opening the door. Fighting down my disappointment, I kiss him.  When Brian turns cold and unresponsive, there are only two options, confrontation or seduction. In general, throwing the cold frog against the wall has proven less effective than kissing him. Quite often that transforms him into a prince.

He turns to me, slides one hand into my hair and the other into the back of my pants and kisses me back like we haven’t seen each other in days. It feels a little desperate. If we hadn’t fucked all night and in the shower this morning, this would be a sure way to make both of us late. When he finally breaks off the kiss, he hesitates to let me go.

“I’ll be here after work,” I say quietly.

Brian moves away abruptly, as if he just remembered where he is and what he’s supposed to be doing. “Suit yourself. I intend to be out fucking all night.” And with that he turns and walks down the stairs without a backwards glance.

It’s a day of reflection for me. I remember my own father’s funeral, the regrets I had and the feeling of being free and angry at the same time. It was also the day I met Brian and that led to changes in my life that I am very grateful for. I’m a much happier person in many ways now than I was that day.

But mainly my thoughts are about Brian and how he might be feeling. It’s always difficult to tell with him. He’s so full of anger still, even though he has mellowed over time. I wish he would open up a bit more, although I can see changes in him already. It’s just that he seems to be moving at an incredibly slow pace where his emotions are concerned and I’m not always sure anymore that I will have the patience to stick this out all the way to the end.

I’m dreading what this will do to him. His words this morning already gave me an indication that I can expect some acting out. It hurts that he looks for comfort in places that aren’t me. The tricks don’t mean anything, I know that, but if they don’t, why does he need them still? And unlike Melanie, I know that I have nothing to fear from Lindsay. I’m not worried about other people per se. I’m hurt that I’m not enough. I would like to be enough for him.

It’s not even about monogamy. I trick occasionally although not very often. But I want to be the person he comes to when he needs someone. At the moment he’s spending most of his time with Lindsay, but I assume that it’s more circumstantial, because they both live in the dorms and Lindsay’s very insistent. Then there’s Michael still, who’s struggling a little to keep Brian in his life while building a new one with Ben. I really admire Ben for being so calm about the situation. But when you have a Damocles sword hanging over you, maybe your boyfriend’s crush on another guy, which will never come to fruition anyway, pales into insignificance.

I’m very aware that after four years I’m still waiting for Brian, that I’m making allowances for his youth and his upbringing and that I’m just hoping that he will one day turn into what I need. Sometimes, I wonder if he hasn’t changed much because I haven’t demanded any changes. But if I do, he might just tell me to fuck off or, worse, he might actually change and I’ll be worried ever after that he just did it for me and will eventually break out of the boundaries I’m setting for him. I don’t want that. I don’t want to force him into anything he doesn’t really want, even if I could, and I don’t want to have to worry about him hating it – and me –  if he complies. I want him to _want_ what I want. So I’m waiting.

Today it’s more than figurative, because after I come home from my day at the gallery, there’s no sign of Brian. I told him I would be here, so I wait for him even though I know he’s not coming. This is how it works. Brian is free to do whatever he feels like doing and I’m confined to being the perfect boyfriend, because Brian might get hurt if I’m not and I couldn’t bear that.

I hear him come in when it’s already getting light. He staggers through the loft, kicking something on the way to the bathroom and swearing under his breath. Then he gets into the shower. Most likely, he fucked his way through half of Liberty Avenue, but he came home in the end.

He comes out of the bathroom butt naked and he’s still a little damp when he plasters himself against my body. His hand goes straight to my cock, which is half-hard just from seeing him without any clothes on. A naked Brian will always arouse me. In fact, he doesn’t even have to be naked to do that to me.

“I want you,” he mumbles, while his lips do goosebumps-inducing things to my neck. His pillow talk may not have improved much in the time we’ve been together, but he certainly knows how to push all my buttons. I’m already turning towards him, compliant and willing, eager even.

“Haven’t you had enough?”

“I only had one fuck,” he says and I know that shouldn’t make me happy, but it does. It also gets me thinking. If he was as wasted and high as I expected him to be last night, where did he spend the night? He’s still not quite sober but enough to have slept most it off somewhere. Did he go home and then change his mind in the early hours of the morning and decide to come here? Or did he spend the night with someone else?

“How was it?” I ask, running my hand through his wet hair and pressing our lower bodies together.

“It was just a fuck.”

“Not _that_. The funeral.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it.” He finds the perfect way to shut me up by kissing me, then distracts me in other ways – relentlessly – until I fall asleep again for a little while.

 

I half expect him to be gone when I wake up, but he shows no signs of wanting to leave. It’s not so unusual since it’s the weekend and he spends most of those at the loft. We have long moved past the stage where I feel the need to entertain him when he’s here. We mostly go to Babylon on Saturday nights, but the rest of the time we just hang out or go our separate ways if either one of us has plans.

When I come back after going to the library for a couple of hours, Brian is sitting at the dining table over his books. He must have gone back to his dorm to pick them up and his suit is hanging up by the window to air out. He keeps it at the loft because he’s worried about spoiling it at the dorms.

I pick up his leather jacket, which has slipped off the back of the couch to put it on the hook and find a Polaroid photograph underneath it that must have fallen out of one of the pockets.

“What’s this?” It shows a man – obviously Jack Kinney at a much younger age – with a baby in his arms. He looks proud and happy and it’s difficult to reconcile this image with the man who beat up on the same child later on in life.

Brian comes rushing over and snatches the picture out of my hand. I’ve invaded his privacy again. Anything to do with his family is strictly none of my business. It’s an impasse we never seem to get past. Debbie has told me more about his parents than he has.

“Claire gave it to me,” he says curtly and walks back to the table to make the photograph disappear somewhere amongst his books.

“Your dad must have loved you, Brian. Maybe he just didn’t know how to show it.” It’s inconceivable to me how any parent could not love their child. On the other hand, it’s irrelevant whether Jack actually loved him at some stage or not after what he did to him over the years. I say it more in an attempt to make him feel better, but I should have known that it wouldn’t work on Brian.

“Yeah, he knew how to show it all right, especially when he had a few,” he says sarcastically and starts making more notes, ignoring me completely. This conversation is over. Sometimes I could weep for the unhappy little boy Brian must have been all through his childhood, but I know Brian wouldn’t thank me for even thinking that.

“Do you want to go to the diner for lunch?” I ask.

“Sure, give me half an hour. I just want to finish this chapter.”

And that is the end of that.

Brian spends the weekend at the loft. And then he spends the next week there. And the following weekend. I’m pleasantly surprised every night when I get home from work or PIFA to find him still there but, of course, I don’t say anything. Mentioning it is the surest way to make him bolt. He will take it either as a complaint or it will remind him how domestic this set-up is. Either way, he’ll be gone in five minutes flat.

I meet Daphne for Sunday lunch and listen to her exploits of the night before. She went to a symposium and hooked up with the speaker afterwards. He must have been some fuck because she’s all starry-eyed and that takes some doing with Daphne. I’m surprised she could even bring herself to leave his bed to meet me.

Eventually, I tell her about Brian having practically moved into the loft and she shakes her head.

“You’re never happy, are you? You whine when he’s not there and now you’re whining that he is. Why don’t you just enjoy it?”

“Because something’s not right, Daph.” If I could shift this strange feeling, I would actually be ecstatic about him being there for so long. But it bothers me to think that something’s off and I can’t pinpoint it.

“He just lost his dad. Maybe he needs a replacement. You _are_ much older than him.” She grins at me impishly. She loves to wind me up with our age difference. I find it creepy. It makes me feel like a child molester, even though Brian was never a child even when I met him at seventeen. One thing I’m certain of is that I’m _not_ his daddy. If anything, I’m worried that he’ll discard me one day for being too old.

“Don’t,” I say warningly, in no mood to joke about this.

“Okay,” she says and I can see her change into her serious discussion mode. “What is it that’s bothering you?”

“Not sure. I want to know what’s going on. He doesn’t usually stay that long at the loft, at least not recently, and he seems to have withdrawn from everyone. He keeps ignoring his phone calls and that’s not like him either.” Like most people his age, Brian is glued to his phone on any given day. They will probably have to surgically remove him from it when he dies.

“So… he’s hiding out?”

“No, why would…” Damn! I’m so dense sometimes. Why didn’t I see it? It’s so obvious, now that she said it. He’s trying to avoid people. But whom? Maybe he had an argument with Michael? But if Michael wanted to contact him, he would. He would just turn up at the loft. So hiding there would be no more effective than staying in his room at Pitt.

“His family?” Daphne suggests.

“Not likely. Claire knows about the loft. She dropped him off once. She would tell his mother.” Not that his mother has ever made any effort to get in touch with him since he left home. In fact, I believe that the funeral was probably the first time he’s seen her in three years.

“Some people at college? Maybe he’s being bullied.”

“Brian doesn’t get bullied. Or if he does, he doesn’t run away from it. He’d rather take a beating than back down.” He does live in the same dorm as all the other scholarship students and most of them are jocks on some sort of sports scholarship, but he must have fucked a fair few of them by now and if there was going to be any trouble, it would have happened long before now.

We’re quiet for a few moments until Daphne’s face brightens. “The _sponge_. It’s gotta be.”

“Lindsay?” Daphne doesn’t like Lindsay very much. She’s met her a few times at the diner and at Debbie’s and she thinks she’s the worst attention seeker and spoilt brat she’s ever come across. It’s a personality clash of epic proportions, not softened in the slightest by Daphne’s usual professional detachment. Compared to her, I can be considered a rabid fan of Lindsay’s. She thinks Lindsay soaks up every bit of attention and emotion that anybody has to give without giving anything in return. Hence the nickname.

“It all fits, doesn’t it?” she says reasonably. “She lives at the dorms, so if he wants to get away from her, he can’t stay there. She would call him constantly if he stays away and he would ignore it. And she’d never follow him to the loft because she’s such a WASP that she’d consider that bad manners, with you being the boyfriend and all.”

It all makes perfect sense, except that Brian doesn’t usually have a problem telling people to fuck off if he doesn’t want them around.

“Lindsay wants Brian to father her child.”

Daphne barely manages to stop herself from spraying her mouthful of coffee all over the table. It seems that Lindsay is the only person who thinks that Brian is fatherhood material. I wonder if Brian even knows about that. Or maybe that’s the reason he’s now hiding out in my loft? Daphne listens with rapt attention as I relate the conversation I had with Melanie in Woody’s.

We spend another hour or so on the topic. Daphne points out that it’s quite possible that this is my best chance to ever have a child of my own. I’m well aware that I’m unlikely to ever be allowed to adopt a child, nor is it likely that I will have another opportunity like this dropped in my lap. But whenever I thought about having a child, I always wanted to see my child grow up, in my house, not be a glorified sperm donor. Like I said, I would consider it with Melanie because I trust her and we could come to an arrangement, but I don’t trust Lindsay. If she broke up with Melanie, there would be no telling where I would end up with regards to the child.

When I get home, Brian is watching TV. I know that Michael's been here because there are food wrappers on the coffee table. Only Michael eats those horrible Doritos that stink the place out.

Brian leans his head back as I walk past and I kiss him upside down. His hand comes up and grabs the collar of my jacket, pulling until I slither over the back of the couch and land half on it and half on Brian.  He continues to kiss me and starts pulling my clothes off.

“Missed me?” I smirk, as I pull his top over his head and open his pants.

“Missed your ass,” he murmurs, too distracted by fishing for lube and a condom under the couch to pay much attention.

Sometimes, when Brian is horny and distracted, I can slip in things he wouldn’t normally tolerate, like saying something affectionate or asking him questions he wouldn’t consider answering if his mind wasn’t so focused on sex. Unfortunately, by that stage, I’m usually too distracted myself to take advantage of it, but not today.

“So, why are you trying to avoid Lindsay?”

I know straight away that it won’t work this time by the way he freezes for a few seconds. His whole body tenses and I’m assuming that the only reason he’s not walking away right now is because I’m practically sitting on him. I’m already regretting that I asked. Now we will have an argument because he’ll accuse me of prying and his stint at the loft will be over. Brian only ever ignores things as long as they don’t get pulled out into the light of day and he can pretend that he forgot about them.

But I’m very much mistaken and he’s playing me at my own game. As he’s pulling back up with the supplies, he pretends to still be distracted, even though he must know that I noticed his hesitation. He starts to open the condom wrapper and says as nonchalantly as only he can: “I fucked her.”

And how bizarre is it that my first thought is, ‘ _God, I hope Lindsay never tells Melanie_ ’?

 

*******

 

All I can say about the funeral is that I feel too warm in my leather jacket and that the cemetery looks kind of picturesque, bathed in glorious sunshine. Trust Jack to have a beautiful funeral. Always coming up smelling of roses.

Claire sniffles her way through the afternoon and I can’t help wondering if she’s actually upset or if she’s doing it because she thinks it’s expected of her. It’s possible that she’s mourning the old bastard. She still pines after Tom, instead of thanking her lucky stars that the fucker left her.

Mom doesn’t look too pleased with Claire’s antics either. She’s been stony-faced all the way through, but that’s no different from the way she usually looks. She must be pleased to be rid of Jack. There might be less money coming in now, but at least it’s all hers and she doesn’t have to worry about it being drunk away before the week is out. Well, she doesn’t have to worry about _someone else_ drinking it away before the week is out.

She greets me with a curt, “Hello, Brian,” and ignores me the rest of the afternoon. She likes Lindsay though, I can tell. Well, it keeps both of them off my back. Until I tell that touching story about Pop ordering her to have an abortion when she told him she was pregnant again.

The day goes rapidly downhill from then on. Granddad gives me a stern talking-to about how children should honor their parents and people can’t get out of the house fast enough. I’m just glad that I managed to smoke that joint at the cemetery, otherwise I would never survive this freak show.

There’s no way I’m staying any longer than strictly necessary and after the first people leave, I get up to do the same. Lindsay is huddling on the couch, looking a little traumatized and trying not to draw any attention. I don’t know what she’s worried about, it’s obvious that everybody loves her.

Claire pulls me to one side, as I’m getting my jacket and Lindsay’s coat from the bedroom. “Daddy asked me to give this to you,” she says and hands me a thin envelope. “He asked me to find it and bring it to him at the hospital. I think he was hoping you would turn up.” Her tone makes it very clear what she thinks of my apparent absence and she obviously doesn’t know about the last conversation I had with Jack. Or maybe she does and thinks I had it coming.

I open the envelope and look at the photograph of Jack and myself when I was a baby. Why the fuck did he want me to have this? And what made him think I would show up again after what he said? He’s smiling in the picture and I can’t help but wonder why. He never wanted me in the first place and he made it very clear throughout his life that his feelings never changed on that score.

“Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all, eh?” Claire says with a wistful smile at the photograph. What planet is she on? Dying doesn’t absolve people from the way they led their lives.

“Yeah, he was a peach.” I shrug into my jacket and make my way out of the house without saying goodbye to anyone. Lindsay comes hurrying after me and takes her coat off me.

“Your mother invited us to Sunday dinner,” she says. Okay, maybe I’m the one from another planet because that sentence doesn’t compute in my universe.  Neither the fact that my mother thinks I might even contemplate coming to dinner at her house, nor the idea that Lindsay would.

“I need a drink.”

She smiles and hooks her hand under my elbow. “I’ve got drinks in my room. And other stuff as well.”

“Now you’re talking.”

Lindsay always has the best stuff. I should know because I buy it for her. Her parents give her so much money it’s sickening. She doesn’t even need to live in the dorms if she doesn’t want to. Before the summer she suggested we should get an apartment together for our last year. But I had to do an unpaid internship this summer, so I don’t have as much money this year as I usually have when I work during the summer. Plus, under the terms of my scholarship, I can live at the dorms for free. She said she would pay for my rent but I declined. If I thought it was okay for someone to pay for me, I would live with Justin. I would probably be less monitored with him than I would be with Lindsay, too.

Lindsay has money and a car, and her parents don’t even care that she changed her major after the second year and practically had to start all over again. But they would probably object to her buying booze and drugs with the money they give her. Lindsay is also pretty convinced that they would object to her choice of partner and after meeting them at her sister’s wedding, I’m inclined to agree. But then again, _I_ object to her choice of partner. Really, Melanie Marcus is the best she can do?

I get changed in my room and then make my way over to hers. She’s got changed as well and hands me a bottle of Beam, which is still three quarters full from my last visit. Good start. She opens a bottle of wine for herself, which probably costs more than the Beam. Fucking rich kids. Their idea of slumming it is drinking wine out of a water glass and nothing would entice them to drink anything other than ‘a good year’.

We make some idle conversation. She very quickly realizes that I’m not in the mood to talk about the funeral or my family in general. Why the fuck would I? I thought that part of my life was over and done with, couldn’t touch me anymore, but it always seems to come back to haunt me. I don’t even want to talk to Justin about it, never mind Lindsay, who is totally clueless.

So we chat about the classes we have together and some of the other students, playing the gay, straight or undecided game. But I don’t feel very talkative at all, which never seems to bother her much. She just curls up next to me, with her head against my shoulder, while I’m getting steadily drunk, wondering if I should take a trip to the baths instead. Once the alcohol is finished, she brings out her stash. I didn’t realize how large and varied her supply has become by now. I think she probably only ever uses it when she’s with me. Good. I don’t think I will be finished anytime soon today.

 

I wake up when it’s still dark and for a moment I have no idea where I am. It’s neither my room nor the loft. I’m naked and there’s a naked body pressed against mine in a very small bed and this is so not good. My memory is more than a bit hazy, but I remember drinking and some pills and a few joints. And Lindsay. Oh fuck!

I feel incredibly filthy and all I want is a shower. The only person I can bear being ‘down and dirty’ with nowadays is Justin. But the shower will have to wait. Luckily, Lindsay is on the side of the bed that’s pushed against the wall. She’s snoring lightly and I think the bottle of wine probably had the same effect on her as all the stuff I took had on me. She just carries on snoring when I roll away from her and let myself drop over the side of the bed onto the floor.

I’m used to making quick getaways and I’m in my clothes and out the door within a minute or so. Obviously, going to my room is not an option at the moment. I fucked up. No doubt about it. And if I go to my room now, my fuck-up will follow me there. This is not like my other fucks. I cannot just tell her to fuck off. Women don’t work that way. I think. Damn, I can’t even think straight. I wonder how intoxicated I still am.

I take a taxi to the loft – fuck the expense, this is an emergency. Justin is asleep, which is only to be expected at this time of the night. And then I can finally immerse myself in his shower. Bits and pieces from the night before come back to me, but none of it is very clear and I’m strangely grateful for that. This is so going to blow up in my face.

What on Earth possessed me to fuck Lindsay? I can’t say that I haven’t been curious what it would be like, but up until now I have never met a woman whom I’ve liked enough to even contemplate it. And I would probably not have done it if I’d been sober. Women, even women as attractive as Lindsay just don’t do it for me. That’s what makes me gay. I like guys. I _only_ like guys. I’m surprised I even managed to get it up, because normally there’s zero arousal when I look at a woman.

Okay, so there were extenuating circumstances. I was drunk and high and I had a stressful day. Will that be enough of an excuse? Why do I need an excuse anyway? Well, almost all the people I know also know Lindsay and if she’s going to be upset about this, I’d better prepare a defense. Not that Melanie will accept that, or Debbie, or Lindsay herself.

But it’s not about them, is it? I don’t give a fuck about them or anybody else. Except Justin. It was just a fuck. He has to know that. My extracurricular activities don’t usually bother him, so maybe this is no different. Oh fuck, who am I kidding? He’ll feel sorry for Lindsay if she’s upset. And he’ll be angry because I’ve broken the no names rule. He was very upset when the same thing nearly happened with Michael that time. In fact, he told me then that it would mean losing him. Double fuck! Better not tell him. Maybe Lindsay won’t remember anything or if she does, maybe she’ll keep quiet about it. Well, she can hardly tell Melanie, can she now?

There are only two ways to go about this. One, I go and see Lindsay as soon as possible, tell her it was just a fuck and somehow persuade her to keep this between ourselves. Surely she must know it didn’t mean anything. She knows I’m gay. But I’m not stupid. I know Lindsay likes me a lot more than is good for her. If I go round there, she’ll make a scene. I hate melodrama. Also, if I don’t say exactly the right thing, there’s no way she’ll keep quiet about this. And even if she does, I will have that hanging over my head from now on.

So I decide on the second option: give her some time to calm down. If I leave it for a couple of weeks, she’ll realize that it was a mistake all by her little self and if I’m really lucky, she’ll be too embarrassed to tell anyone anyway –  Everybody wins. I may even be able to salvage our friendship. I like Lindsay. She’s all soft and caring and completely focused on me. It’s different when it comes from a woman. I never really had that before. The closest I’ve come is Debbie looking out for me, when she’s not too busy blaming me for things.

But if Lindsay tells people, Justin will find out.  And there’s no telling how he’ll react.  We may not have rules that specifically apply to this kind of situation, but I can’t pretend that I didn’t know it was always implied that I don’t go around fucking people we both know. When it was Michael, he made it very clear that this was a line I must never cross. Does that apply to Lindsay as well? He told me he fucked Daphne once, so he knows how little it means. But I’m sure he’ll find a dozen reasons why this is different. He always does. No, it will be better if he never finds out.

For a week I’m in luck. I ignore Lindsay’s calls, voicemails and messages. With a bit of strategic planning, I manage to evade her when I go to class. I skip the two classes we have together, which is something I can afford and she can’t, and I move all the stuff I need to the loft and concentrate on the paper I have due at the end of the month. It all works rather well and even Lindsay’s calls peter out a little, although there are still two or three of them every day.

But it’s not so easy to fool Justin. He knows something isn’t right. I can see him watching me, but I’m hoping that he’ll put it down to Jack’s death. He’s very considerate like that. The fact that Melanie hasn’t turned up at the loft to ream me out tells me that Lindsay hasn’t told her.  There’s no way Melanie wouldn’t make her displeasure known if she knew and she wouldn’t miss this opportunity to rat me out to Justin either. So far, so good.

I’m further reassured when Michael comes round the following Sunday and doesn’t say anything. If Lindsay told anyone, he would know and there’s no way he would not speak to me about it. I will give it another week and then I’ll go and talk to Lindsay. Maybe she just wants to forget about it as well. She _is_ a lesbian after all. We can chalk it up to experience and laugh about it in the future.

When Justin comes home from his little outing with Daphne, I’m totally unprepared for his question. “So, why are  you avoiding Lindsay?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck! He knows! I really thought I’d got away with it. I have about ten seconds to decide what to do now. The smartest thing would probably be to act contrite, maybe even apologize and promise to never do it again. Yeah, like it’s ever going to happen again anyway. So I wouldn’t even promise anything that would put me out in any way.

But Justin is not my wife and I’m not my father. Jack always brought Mom flowers when he’d done something and it never worked. Because Mom wasn’t fooled and he never changed his ways anyway. And I don’t owe Justin anything. We’re both free agents. There’s no need to apologize or to regret anything. And it’s too late now anyway. If I wanted to allow him the right to be angry or upset about this, I should have confessed to him a week ago. Now it will just look pathetic, like I’m only doing it because I got caught, like Jack always did.

“I fucked her,” I say calmly, because no matter how I feel, I can always pull it off.

There’s a pause and I know straight away that I can kiss this fuck goodbye. I also realize that I made a grave mistake. He _didn’t_ know.  And I just told him! Fuck! I should have kept my mouth shut and denied that anything’s wrong. I expect him to jump up and tell me to leave, but he looks kind of stunned, so I blurt out, “It was just a fuck. I don’t even remember it.”

I just want him to stop looking at me like that, but my words seem to make it worse. His expression changes from disbelief to horror or maybe disgust and he scrambles to get up off the couch and me. I put both hands on his hips, pushing down to stop him. He stills, but he’s not looking at me. He does that thing where he rubs his forehead with his fingers, which he does when he’s trying to work out what to say and all of a sudden I don’t want to hear it.

I’m angry with myself for falling for his little trick of pretending that he knew when he didn’t. How gullible can you get? But I’m also getting more and more angry with him for making me feel guilty. He has no right to make me feel this way. I’m free to do what I want. I’m not Jack. I won’t apologize for the way I live my life, because I don’t need to. Only thing is, I kind of just did. Because Justin has a knack for making me feel like I’m the biggest fuck-up in the world without ever saying a word.

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” I snarl at him. It doesn’t. Whom I fuck is none of his business.

He nods a few times and when I relax my hands on his hips, he gets up slowly and this time I don’t stop him.

“I think I’ll have a shower,” he says, more to himself than me and walks towards the bathroom.

Bastard. Who does he think he is, getting on his high horse and riding out onto the moral high ground? Justin always has the moral high ground. Because he doesn’t do stupid shit like I do. Still, that doesn’t give him the right to throw it in my face all the time.

I hear the shower come on and know that he won’t come out for a long time. It’s his safe place. Well, he hasn’t thrown me out yet, but he may still do that when he’s had some time to think. Justin doesn’t make rash decisions, but once he’s made one, it will be irrevocable. I’d better get in there and make sure he makes the right one.

He doesn’t expect me to join him, I can tell by the way he tenses up when I step into the cubicle. His head is turned away from me and he doesn’t look around, but when I pull on his arm a bit, he allows me to guide his head under the water and lets me wash his hair.

I know that the only way Justin will ever be able to resist me is by keeping a physical distance. He loves sex as much as I do and he specifically loves sex with me. When I kiss and bite his neck, he leans to one side to make it easier for me. He pushes back against me and twists to encourage my hands to move where he wants them to be. I can’t help but smile. This should go a long way to convince him that what happened was unimportant.

I fuck him slowly, taking my time and making sure that he’s desperate by the end, just before I make him come. He is, but he never turns his head to kiss me and he’s very quiet. There’s barely a grunt when he shoots all over the glass of the shower wall.

Justin never withholds sex when we have disagreements. That’s such a hetero thing to do, neither one of us would even dream of it. We’re men, fucking is what we do. What Justin does do is withhold himself. When he’s not happy, he goes into this place inside of him to think and regroup and it’s as if he isn’t even here. I could fuck him for hours and never get any closer. I should know, I’ve tried.

He leans his head against the glass and, even though he’s still in my arms, he’s not exactly molding himself against me like he usually does. He’s in his own little world where I have no place. I’m not even sure if he realizes that he’s doing it. All I know is that I’m not welcome there.

Finally he straightens up and says, “You can’t go round doing whatever you feel like and ignoring other people’s feelings, Brian.”

Is he talking about Lindsay or himself? Either way, I won’t let it stand. “People are responsible for their own happiness. And their own pain.”

“You have to take some responsibility.”

“I take plenty of responsibility – for my own actions.”

“Your actions affect other people. You have to take that into consideration. Not everyone can shut off their feelings like you can. You’ll end up hurting people.”

It’s like I thought: poor little Lindsay. “It’s not as if I forced her.”

“No. No, I’m quite sure she wanted you. Maybe even initiated it. You’re missing the point.”

“What is the fucking point? She got off. I got off. It’s all good.”

“Jeez, Brian, even you can’t be that dense.” He sounds exasperated.

“Maybe I am.”

“No, you’re not. You’re hiding behind it.”

“I’m not hiding. I’ve nothing to hide. No reason to hide. I don’t owe anybody anything.”

He’s quiet for a while, then moves towards the shower door and opens it. “You have to stop drinking and drugging until you no longer know what you’re doing, Brian. You have to grow up at some point.”

He steps out of the shower and wraps himself in one of the towels. So far he has barely looked at me. But he finally raises his head and he looks so… tired. He gives me a sad little smile and a nod and leaves the bathroom. I stick my head under the spray and vow that I’ll never grow up. Who’d want to?

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

**PART  THREE**

Brian sleeping with Lindsay comes as quite a shock to me. Of all the people I know, Brian is probably the one who’s the most secure in his sexuality. He was practically out when he was still at school and his parents must have been the only people left in Pittsburgh who didn’t know that he’s gay. Most guys experiment at some stage in their lives, but I assumed that Brian was long past that point before we even met. Sleeping with a woman out of curiosity was not something I expected him to do.

On the other hand, Brian is a hedonist. Anything sexual he will try, so it’s a minor miracle that it took him this long. I’m not even sure if it _was_ curiosity. He doesn’t talk about it. When I asked him, he said he would tell me if I told him about the time I slept with Daphne and the conversation stopped right there. I don’t talk about that. It wouldn’t be fair on Daph and it’s not the same anyway. We were both free to do what we wanted and it was more about alleviating her fears than about curiosity or even sex.

Now, I know that Brian doesn’t consider our relationship as something that should in any way limit his behavior. I got used to that and, in general, it doesn’t bother me much. But Lindsay is in a relationship, which at least her partner considers monogamous, and I always thought Lindsay did, too.

I’m not surprised that Brian doesn’t care about Melanie’s feelings – that’s definitely mutual – but I thought that he at least cared about Lindsay. They’ve been friends since they met at college in his first year, but the way he spoke about the encounter left me reeling. He showed no consideration for Lindsay at all and I’m pretty sure that he’s been avoiding her for the past three weeks. As ambivalent as I feel about her, I can’t help wondering how she’s coping. But what bothers me the most about it all is how callous Brian can be. Sometimes I have to ask myself if I’m misjudging him after all and just see things in him because I want to see them.

One thing is certain, Lindsay hasn’t told anyone. If she had, especially if she was upset, all hell would have broken loose by now. Over time, I’ve become part of this close-knit group of people who hang out a lot. We don’t really fit together much, but certain relationships within the group have turned us almost into a family. There are the three couples: Lindsay and Melanie, Michael and Ben and Brian and I. I was friendly with Melanie before I met Brian and we’ve both become friends with Ben. Melanie and Ted get on like a house on fire and Brian and Lindsay are friends. Then there are Michael and Brian still. And Emmett, who’s friends with everyone. And above all, there’s Debbie, who has practically adopted all of Michael's friends and me and the lesbians, too. Ben is the only one she would cut off without a second thought if only she could.

We gossip a lot, about other people but also about each other. Whenever there’s an upset in the group, everybody takes sides – passionately. As Brian is always the center of attention, he causes most of the upsets, and even when he doesn’t, his scornful attitude towards the others’ misfortunes usually turns him into a target quickly enough. In defending him, I often find myself in an unlikely alliance with Michael and Lindsay. The only other person who sometimes takes his side is Ben, of all people.

So if Lindsay had talked, I would have heard about it by now. Melanie, at least, would have left me in no doubt about what she thinks of my boyfriend. Instead she told me two days ago that Lindsay decided to move in with her. I got off the phone pretty quickly after that because I felt like I was deceiving her somehow. I know it’s not my place to tell her what happened, but it feels like betrayal to me. We are friends after all.

And Debbie hasn’t said anything either. She has her hands full with making plans for the weekend. It’s Pride Weekend, but she’s more focused on the fact that Vic’s coming to visit. There’s to be a surprise party and we’ve all been more or less ordered to attend. I’m wondering how much fun that will be for Vic, since he hardly knows most of us.

Brian has agreed to turn up, much to my surprise. He’s been avoiding what Debbie bills as ‘family dinners’ whenever he can for quite some time now. There was a big bust-up between him and Debbie two years ago and their relationship has never been the same since. I have no doubt that Debbie loves Brian like a son, only, he’s definitely the black sheep of the family.

It’s pretty brave of him to face Lindsay at a family gathering. She clearly has the upper hand there. All she has to do is mention what happened and that he hasn’t spoken to her since. Group dynamics will do the rest. Although why Brian should get the blame for the whole fiasco is beyond me. Ever since I met him, I’ve become a lot more cautious about judging people. What happened between Brian and me could have easily been construed as something rather sinister by outsiders on account of his age. And our relationship now is nothing like it seems either. It’s easy to jump to conclusions and as far as I’m concerned whatever consenting adults do, is between them. But that’s not what the others will think.

When Brian and I arrive at Debbie’s house, everybody except Lindsay and Melanie is already there. Debbie’s busy cooking Vic’s favorite dish. We’ve all been to see the parade and some of us already had a few drinks, so it’s a miracle we’re even here. Most of us have agreed to stay for dinner and maybe an hour or two afterwards, but what we really want to do is get back to Liberty Avenue and celebrate. I’m rather hoping Vic will feel the same way, so that it won’t be so embarrassing when we all slink away early. We could all celebrate at Woody’s or something.

Ben and Michael have brought the kid they’ve taken in recently. I don’t quite understand what the deal is, but it’s been going on for a few weeks now. Well, he isn’t quite a kid anymore, I’d guess about fifteen, very skinny, with scraggly brown hair. They picked him up when he was hustling outside their apartment. Because that’s what you do, you see a hustler and you ask him to move in with you – naturally. It’s really bizarre because Michael is barely half a dozen years older than him.

“This is Hunter,” Ben says and he looks as proud as if the kid was his own son.

I say hello to him, but he only gives me the barest of glances and hones in on Brian. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Brian says with bored disinterest and turns towards Michael.

Hunter is unperturbed. “You wanna fuck?”

That gets Brian’s attention all right – and everybody else’s. Emmett starts giggling, while Ted just shakes his head. Debbie drops the Lasagna pan onto the kitchen worktop with a deliberate noisy clang and Ben lets out an admonishing, “Hunter!”, which the kid completely ignores. I turn around to see Brian’s reaction.

He looks Hunter up and down, then turns to Michael. “This the kid?” he asks, obviously amused.

“Yeah, this is Hunter. Hunter, this is Brian.” I don’t think Michael likes his new roomie very much. He sounds exasperated.

“So, how about it?” Hunter hasn’t given up yet and sidles up close and personal to Brian, who pokes one finger against his chest and pushes him to a more decent distance.

“Yeah, I think I’ll refrain.” He hugs Michael instead and kisses him on the lips.

“I should hope so,” Debbie says from the kitchen and it’s impossible to tell whether she’s more annoyed with the kid or with Brian. But Ben’s already dragging Hunter into the corner by the door and giving him a lecture. He completely obscures the boy from sight with his large frame and he can be pretty imposing when he wants to be. I hope it works because I don’t want to spend the rest of the dinner watching some teenage hustler hit on my boyfriend.

“Brian Kinney strikes again,” Ted mutters.

“Yeah, it was rather predictable, really,” Brian grins.

To give myself something to do, I set out the plates and the silverware, which are still stacked in the middle of the table and take a seat. This is really not my idea of fun. And it just keeps getting better because just as Ben and Hunter are returning to the table, the front door opens and Lindsay and Melanie walk in.

It’s impossible to tell whether Brian has actually not noticed them or is deliberately pretending not to see them. He sits down next to me and it’s almost comical how fast Michael and Hunter move to get to the chair on the other side of him. Luckily Michael is a lot closer to the table and gets there first. Brian seems amused.

There are greetings all around and Melanie takes some dish into the kitchen. It’s probably some sort of meat-free concoction that nobody but the women will eat. None of them seem to ever work out that the guys don’t like their food. Personally, I find only Ben’s cooking less palatable than theirs.

Lindsay has moved up to the table and when Brian doesn’t pay any attention to her, she says, “Hello, Brian,” very pointedly. So much for not letting anybody know that there’s something going on. Everybody is focused on the two of them within seconds, while trying not to be too obvious about it. I can tell that Melanie doesn’t know anything yet by her lack of reaction. She glares at Brian, but it’s no more than what she usually does.

“Hey, Linz,” Brian says calmly. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

He shrugs. “I’ve been staying at Justin’s on and off.”

Try, _all the time_ , but who’s paying attention to details anyway? Lindsay shoots me a quick look, flashes an embarrassed smile and sits down opposite Brian. Well, at least she’s embarrassed to look at me after what happened, which is more than can be said of Brian.

“You missed class,” she carries on.

“I really didn’t miss it much and I can afford it. Did Levinson bore you all to tears with his little forays into personal anecdotes again?”

Lindsay laughs a little and it sounds fake and strained. “He told the one about the dog again.”

I can feel almost sorry for her. She looks so uncomfortable and upset. Melanie’s giving her a searching look and so is everyone else to some degree. Only Brian seems not to notice. And Hunter, who, just like Lindsay, can’t take his eyes off him. I see Ben rub his forehead in a frustrated gesture and can sympathize with him. He must be wondering what it is that Brian does to attract all the men he cares about.

Everybody else is just watching and wondering, but as neither Lindsay nor Brian are giving anything away, things just go back to normal with all of them joining into the conversation, which, after a while, moves on to the Pride parade. I try not to think about Brian missing class because he’s trying to avoid Lindsay. I’m not his father. I shouldn’t worry about these things. And I’m sure as hell not going to mention it to Brian. He would only tell me to mind my own business.

Brian seems completely relaxed, with his arm draped over the back of my chair, his hand idly playing with the hair at the back of my neck. Occasionally he makes some remark that is for my ears only, making his warm breath tickle my skin as he leans in and rubbing the tip of his nose against my cheek or planting a quick kiss there when he withdraws.

His little affectionate gestures don’t go unnoticed either. It’s rare for him to be like this in public, although not completely unprecedented. I’m more used to this when we’re alone at home. He calls it ‘foreplay’ and it usually leads to sex eventually, but I still maintain that if you cuddle for a couple of hours before sex, it’s still cuddling. In general, I love it when it happens in front of our friends. Just for a little while, it will stop them from wondering why I’m even with Brian. But today, I would enjoy it more if I didn’t feel like he’s using me to make a point. To Lindsay, and possibly to Hunter as well. Michael got the point a long time ago, I think.

“How do you like shacking up together?” Ted asks after a while. He and Melanie are really close, definitely closer than I am to either one of them.

Lindsay blushes and Melanie grins. “It’s great.”

Brian has started a conversation with Michael about some comic book convention Michael wants him to attend and pays no attention whatsoever to the other conversations at the table. Of course, he already knows that Lindsay moved in with Melanie. I told him. But his only reaction at the time was to bemoan the fact that it was Melanie Lindsay moved in with. When I suggested that what happened between him and her had something to do with it, he laughed it off and went out.

Now he feigns disinterest rather convincingly. After all this time, I still have trouble reading him sometimes. It’s no wonder that so many people misjudge him. He doesn’t say anything until Melanie says with a big smile, “We decided to have a baby.”

“That’s wonderful,” Debbie says.

“I hate to break it to you, Mel,” Ted grins. “But even as butch as you are, I’m thinking you still need a man for that.”

That earns him a playful slap against his chest from Melanie. “Hey, never underestimate lesbian power.”

I feel my stomach knot a little in dread, hoping that she won’t put me on the spot. I did make it clear that I wouldn’t be available, right? I said I’d think about it and I have, but not in the sense that she meant. My thoughts have been circling around the idea of ever having a child in general and even that only in the vaguest terms. My answer to having a child with Lindsay is still the same and doesn’t need any further consideration.

“Just think, we could have a little tyke running around here next year,” Emmett says, already tearing up a bit.

“Hardly. It takes nine months, Emmett, and then another year or so for him or her to start walking.” Ben is reasonable as always.

“We want to wait till Lindsay’s graduated anyway.”

While I think that’s an excellent idea, I wonder if Melanie is really as okay with that as she appears to be. She sounded a little desperate when she spoke to me about it.

“Why the fuck would anybody want to bring a baby into this world?” Brian pipes up.

There are admonishing calls of ‘Brian!’ and ‘shut up!’ but he’s unrepentant. “You give a kid two mommies and it’s already disadvantaged. Never mind what being brought up by Melanie will do to it.”

Melanie just smiles at him because for once she has the upper hand. She’s finally managed to pry Lindsay away from his influence and got her to agree to her dearest wish. But Lindsay looks like she’s about to burst into tears and Debbie’s gearing up to give him a piece of her mind. This is shaping up to be one of our discussions that threatens to deteriorate into a serious dispute, when the door opens and Vic steps into the house.

Boy, am I glad to see him.

 

*******

 

Justin is stewing. I’m not exactly sure what’s bothering him, but something is. I can always tell. Ever since I told him about Lindsay, he’s been more reserved than usual. A couple of days afterwards he told me that she moved in with Melanie, but he didn’t comment at all. There was no ‘good for them’ or even a ‘what are they thinking’ and my remark, that they would get married next was only met by the reply that I probably expedited proceedings. I didn’t want to start a discussion on that point. The less said about that night the better.

The munchers are a sore point between us, or more precisely Melanie is, just like she’s a sore point between Lindsay and me. I think Lindsay could do better and for some unfathomable reason Justin thinks that Melanie could. How he worked that one out is beyond me. Linz is funny and gentle and generous, while Melanie is sarcastic and arrogant and tough as nails. I don’t understand what he likes about her. I can see how she’s different with him than she’s with me, hell, she’s different with just about anybody. And I can’t help wondering what his attitude is when they’re alone. Does he defend me? Or agree with her?

I haven’t seen Lindsay for more than two weeks when we get issued with an attendance order for one of Debbie’s dinners. Normally, the implication that it’s mandatory alone makes me stay away, but this time it’s for Vic. I haven’t seen Vic in a year. The last couple of times he had to postpone his visit at the last minute because he had to work. Even Michael and Debbie haven’t seen him since last year.

I know Lindsay will be there and it will give me an opportunity to check out what’s going on with her. If she treats me like she always does, we can pick up where we left off before our alcohol and drugs fueled moment of madness. I still can’t believe I did that. I must have been really out of it because I can barely remember even glimpses of it. Not that I particularly want to remember it. I’m definitely never doing that again, not with her or any other woman. Once is more than enough.

But it would be nice if we could stay friends. Can women really do that? Fuck someone and then go back to the way things were? Guys do it all the time. Well, not really. There’s a reason you shouldn’t fuck your friends but with semi-strangers it works. Do lesbians have people they fuck and then share pizza with the next time they meet? Or is there always high drama involved? I really wouldn’t know.

I’m happy enough to stay at the loft for now. Justin is quiet, but otherwise there have been no repercussions. For a while I was wondering if he would throw me out like he threatened when I was going to fuck Michael – and what a hare-brained idea that was, too – but he hasn’t said anything further on the subject of Lindsay.

So Justin and I are just coasting along. It’s always fun to stay with him, but it makes me nervous that he doesn’t let on what’s bugging him. Usually it comes out after a while. He has a problem, he thinks it over and then he tells me what conclusion he’s come to. Maybe he hasn’t got that far yet. I don’t want to ask him outright. I’m always really careful not to do that because it would set a dangerous precedent. It might make him think that it’s okay to ask me about my thoughts, too. I’d like to keep those to myself, thank you very much.

He looks really tired at the moment. On top of working three days, he also attends PIFA twice a week and always seems to have projects on. Not that he’s ever unavailable for me. We fuck pretty much on demand. I can’t remember the last time he said no to me or I to him. If anything, we fuck more than ever because I can’t seem to get enough just now. I can’t get close enough. He is so… distant. I hate it, but I don’t know what to do about it.

Only, I don’t think he’s even aware of it. It’s not like we had an argument and he’s sulking. Or like he has a problem and is absent-minded. Everything is as it should be. And yet… he has gone to that place again where he shuts me out. I’m just not sure if he knows it.

He seems surprised when I tell him that I will go to Debbie’s dinner. It’s not that I never go there anymore. But Michael lives with Ben now, so I have no occasion to be around Debbie’s so much and she’s not very fond of me anyway. Boy, can that woman hold a grudge! I’ve always suspected that she would rather see the back of me, but nowadays she makes it pretty obvious that she would shut me out if she could. Luckily there’s always Ben, whom she actually hates more than me. But yeah, I come a close second.

Ben and Michael have been shacking up for two years now. Eventually, Debbie’s nagging became so much that even Michael snapped and packed his bags. Good for him! He needed that. Of course, his disagreement with his mother lasted no more than a week, but to his credit, he never moved back in. Naturally, that’s my fault, too. All I said was, ‘About time, too.’ and she made it sound as if I was the sole instigator of her baby’s little rebellion. How come she never blames Michael for his choices? It’s always other people’s fault.

I can’t say that she mistreats me in any way. She doesn’t call me an asshole every time I walk in the door – although I’m pretty convinced she often does it in her head – but whenever there’s a problem or a discussion, she’s always quick to point out all my bad points. On the other hand, that’s still better than the silent treatment she gives Ben most of the time. Like I said, she really knows how to hold a grudge.

Like today. Ben and Michael brought ‘the kid’. I‘ve heard of him, of course, plenty of stories. Michael is not exactly ecstatic that he moved into their place and I don’t blame him. Who would want to live with a complete stranger just because Ben feels they are ‘related by blood’? I didn’t know that being positive gave people a special bond. In fact, I would very much dispute that from what I’ve seen around Liberty Avenue. Being sick doesn’t actually make you a better person, nor does it engender much sympathy among other people.

So this Hunter takes a shine to me from the moment he lays eyes on me. Well, that’s not such an unusual occurrence either. I get hit on all the time, although not always as crudely as he does it. But then, he’s a hustler and from what I hear, he hasn’t given that up yet, so what can you expect? He would probably expect payment if I took him up on his offer. Like I would ever pay for it!

So I do the right thing and decline – not even tempting – and Debbie makes it sound as if it’s all my fault. Hey, _he_ came on to _me._ I’m the innocent bystander here. And I can see this whole attitude of his becoming tedious very quickly. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. He’s fifteen, he’s a hustler, he lives with Ben and Michael and he’s positive. You could take any three of those out of the equation and he would still have too many strikes against him, even if I was attracted to him.

Justin doesn’t say anything but then again, he wouldn’t. He never comments on other guys. The most he ever does is what he’s doing now: walking away. Usually, when I get hit on when we’re out together and he thinks I might take the guy up on it, he just leaves quietly. But I very rarely fuck other guys when he’s around anyway. Why would I? When I’m with Justin, I’m there because I want to be with him. I can fuck other guys any time I want.

He can’t think that I would really consider fucking the kid, so he must be upset about something else. I’ve been getting the impression for a while now that Justin doesn’t like family dinners any more than I do. He watches Michael and Hunter scramble for the seat next to me but doesn’t seem very amused by it. Nor does he look very happy to see the munchers.

I put my arm at the back of his chair and start playing with his hair. He likes that and I can feel him relax a little. Why is he nervous? It’s not as if Lindsay has a problem with him or anybody will blame him. The conversation starts a little awkwardly but soon everybody is just chatting and Lindsay seems to have forgotten what happened. Good. Because I have.

I try to coax Justin out of his mood a little and he molds himself against my arm, smiling at my whispered side jokes. The others watch us as if we’ve never done this before. What, they think that all we do is fuck? But I don’t really care what they think. I want to know what’s going on with Justin. Let them think what they like.

Michael wants me to come to the comic book convention with him next week. Why the hell does he want _me_ to go? I haven’t shown an interest in comics since I left high school. He should take Ben. Ben’s always going on about homoerotic influences in comics or some shit. He could probably get the entrance fees reimbursed as research expenses as well.

And then Melanie says that she and Lindsay are planning to have a baby. When did that happen? Last I heard was that Lindsay wasn’t too sure about it. I think it’s a ludicrous idea. Lindsay is way too young to have a child. And having two lesbians as parents isn’t going to do the poor kid any favors in life. Never mind that I can’t understand why anybody would even consider bringing a child into this fucked-up world in the first place. So I say as much, and get the expected reaction.

And then Vic walks in.

I only catch a few glimpses of him before Debbie is by the door and has him in a bone-crushing hug. But it’s enough. He looks like a ghost, deadly pale with dark circles under his eyes and incredibly skinny. I look at Justin, who looks a little shocked as well and then at Ben, who’s staring a Vic before looking down at the table. Yeah, I know what he’s thinking – because I’m thinking the same thing.

“I told you not to make a fuss, Sis,” Vic says to Debbie, but there’s no heat behind his words.

“It’s just a little party,” she says happily and lets him go, taking a good look at him for the first time. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? You look like death warmed over.”

“I don’t feel so good today.”

Yeah, and any other day for the last few months by the looks of it. Michael has got up by now and is there to greet him. “Hey, Uncle Vic. Where’s your bag?” He goes outside and comes back in with two large suitcases and then goes outside again for another one. Looks like Vic will be staying a while.

“Where’s Rocco?” Debbie asks, looking behind her brother.

“He just dropped me off. He had somewhere to go.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, not believing a word of it.

It’s almost eerie how nobody else has got up for a greeting. Everybody’s just watching, not quite knowing what to say. One of Justin’s hands has dropped to my thigh and is squeezing my leg a little, but I don’t think he’s even aware of it. Fuck this.

“Hey Vic,” I call out. “About time you turn up. I’m starving.”

Vic looks up and grins at me. For a moment, he looks like he always did, all sparkling eyes and smirking grin. He and I always got on well. When I was fifteen he was the hottest guy I knew. But then he comes forward and takes a seat and from close up he looks even worse than he did from across the room. “Well, let’s eat then.”

Debbie bursts into a bustle of activity. Her food is as good as ever. Eating around her house always reminds me of the many times I had dinner here when I was still living with my parents. She always made me feel welcome, even though she was forever lecturing me at the same time. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I usually avoid family dinners. It just isn’t the same anymore. Not that I miss the lectures much.

“So what’s wrong with you?” Debbie asks, while we’re all helping ourselves to food.

“Just a stomach bug,” Vic mumbles, dishing himself a dinner that we all know he won’t eat. It’s always best to pile some food on your plate at Debbie’s.

“How very reassuring, with you being a chef and all,” I grin and everybody laughs, albeit a little tensely.

Vic shoots me a grateful look and starts answering questions about what he’s been up to for the last year or so. Vic can really tell a story. I’ve been hanging on his lips since I first met him. Well, he lives in New York, for fuck’s sake. I don’t want to miss the smallest detail. But today he falls silent very quickly and he looks so tired that Emmett takes pity on him and regales us with his little adventures during this afternoon. I swear nobody has as many funny mishaps in a month as that guy has in a day.

Vic excuses himself before dessert and goes upstairs to lie down. Ben quickly gets up to take his suitcases up for him and doesn’t come back down for half an hour. The rest of us try to make conversation, but it’s sketchy at best.

“What did he say?” Debbie asks, when Ben comes back downstairs.

“Not a lot. I did most of the talking.”

“Yeah, you would,” she grouses. “What about?”

“This and that.”

“Uh-huh.” Debbie never interrogates Ben like she does with the rest of us. In general, she talks to him as little as possible, which after two years is wearing very thin indeed.

“I wanna go to Woody’s,” Emmett announces and it’s not even funny how eagerly everybody agrees to that. Almost all of us rise as one from the table.

Michael decides to stay around his mother’s house. No great surprise there. Hunter sidles up to me and tells me that I can buy him a few drinks and then I could get lucky, which makes me laugh. His pick-up lines are really terrible, but I suppose the guys he usually deals with don’t care. Not to mention that legally I can barely buy my own drinks.

“You’re not going to Liberty Avenue,” Ben says. “You’re coming home with me.”

To my great surprise, Hunter doesn’t make much of a fuss. He seems to have accepted Ben as a parent figure, which Ben kind of is to most people anyway.

We all end up sitting around a table in Woody’s. Even the munchers came along because Lindsay insisted. Woody’s is pretty empty with most of the Pride celebration taking place outside in the street, but none of us feels up to much celebrating at the moment.

“So are you all thinking what I’m thinking?” Emmett finally addresses the elephant in the room.

“He might just have a stomach bug, like he says,” Lindsay pipes up. “He didn’t eat much.”

“Yeah, the question is what kind of a stomach bug?” Ted says ominously.

“Well, if he’s sick, he only has himself to blame,” I can’t help saying. “That’s what condoms are for.” I don’t want to talk about this, so I get up and nearly bump into a guy who has come up to our table. He looks vaguely familiar, but he’s way too old to be a trick and he doesn’t pay much attention to me. Not that I have any interest in him either, but he’s kind of in my way right now.

“Oh, hi, Paul,” Emmett says in his cheery voice. He really is friendly with every single person on Liberty Avenue. And don’t tell me he’s into fucking fossils now.

I’m just about to wind my way around this Paul to go to the bar when something stops me. There’s an ominous pause where there should be a reply and when I look back at Emmett, all the color has drained from his face.

“Godiva?” he asks quietly.

Paul just nods.

“When?”

“This afternoon.”

Emmett nods a few times and then gets up and follows Paul without a word. I remember why he looks familiar now. He works at the local hospice. Emmett introduced us once for whatever reason he cooked up in that scrambled brain of his. He’s big on what he calls ‘southern gentility’.

Great, just fucking great, that’s all we need this evening. I make my way over to the bar to have a drink and a smoke. I’m angry. I don’t know who with or what I’m angry about but there it is. I can’t stop my mind from seeing Vic, so frail and ill. Of course, we’re all thinking the same thing. We all saw Ben when his pancreas almost shut down a year ago. He was on death’s door until the new meds kicked in.

I can’t believe that Vic could have been that stupid. He always lectured Michael and me on safe sex when we were younger. He couldn’t have been that stupid, surely. I won’t believe it. Maybe Lindsay’s right. Maybe it’s just a stomach bug. It has to be. But it doesn’t help that Godiva died today of all days. Not that I knew her at all. We had maybe a passing acquaintance at most. But it still feels like a bad omen.

Justin sits down next to me and orders both of us a shot. “We don’t know anything yet,” he says, but I know he doesn’t really believe that.

“Some Pride we’re having,” I mutter, downing my drink.

“It’s not too late to celebrate,” he says, nodding towards a couple of guys who are cruising either me or him or both of us from one of the tables. “Go find a stud. Ask him to dance.”

He kisses my bare shoulder and makes his way back to the others but only to say goodbye by the looks of it, because he doesn’t sit back down. Then he gives me a little wave and leaves. I watch Ted making his way to the men’s room and getting accosted by Troy. Looks like Theodore is going to become this year’s pity fuck. Good for him. I wonder if he knows that Troy does this every year. He looks like he can’t believe his luck.

I look back at the two guys who are cruising me, but they’re really not what I want. I want something else tonight. Actually, I _need_ something else. Outside, the street is really filling up now and I have to push my way through the crowds. Justin’s not very far ahead of me and when I catch up to him, I put my hand on his shoulder. He looks surprised.

“Hey, stud, you wanna dance?”

He frowns and then smiles a little uncertainly, not quite sure what’s going on. But he lets me pull him into the middle of the street and molds himself against me. It’s not really dancing because the music is for shit and people are squashing us worse than they do at Babylon on a Saturday night. But there’s full body contact and kissing and it’s just what I need right now.

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

**PART  FOUR**

Emmett is just about the sweetest guy I know. For someone who has been out on Liberty Avenue since he was sixteen, he can be incredibly naïve sometimes and he’s strangely un-jaded for all his experience. And yet underneath all that showy exterior and open vulnerability, there’s a resilience that’s all the stronger for being hidden.

But he’s a mess at the moment. I’m accompanying him to the hospice to collect Godiva’s belongings. She didn’t have any relations, at least none who would ever admit to it and Emmett is her next of kin by default and by choice. We’ll have a collection on Liberty Avenue tonight to pay for her funeral. I have no doubt that we’ll get a substantial amount. She was quite a fixture in the community.

Emmett’s eyes are red-rimmed and he tells me anecdotes from his life with Godiva in such a sad voice that I just want to hug him all day. He may be only a year younger than Brian and Michael, but in our group he will always be the baby. At least I will always feel a little responsible for him, like I would for a younger relative. I end up buying him dinner at the diner before spending an hour or so helping him with the collection. He soon finds someone to console him and that leaves me free to go home.

Brian’s not at the loft. I have no idea where he might be. He never tells me where he goes because that wouldn’t fit in with his ‘there’re no locks on our door’ philosophy. It wouldn’t bother me if I at least knew whether he’s planning on staying at the loft overnight or not. I never know if I’m going to be alone for the night.

But tonight I’m in luck. He comes in not twenty minutes later and whatever he’s been doing has given him such a nervous energy that he fucks me over the back of the couch before he’s even in the loft for five minutes. It’s one of those happy occasions when our moods are perfectly in sync. I’m more than ready for hard fucking all night.

It’s amazing that Brian and I still have as much sex after four years as we did in the beginning. I can’t imagine that ever changing either, it is such an integral part of our relationship. Brian does a lot of his communicating this way. I can always gauge his mood from the way he’s fucking me, although most of the time it just tells me that he’s plain horny.

But today there’s an element of desperation in it and that means that he’s either upset or angry. Or both. Being upset always makes him angry because he doesn’t know what to do with feeling that way. He can’t talk about it like other people do and he can’t just let himself be comforted because that would make him look weak in his eyes. So anger is his only outlet. But as long as he’s not angry with me personally, it just translates itself into prolonged hard fucking. Nothing wrong with that.

Three hours later I have almost forgotten how sad my day has been. I’m curled naked against Brian, who’s blowing smoke rings into the air. It’s getting late and we might as well go to sleep now. I have class tomorrow and I’m hoping to get some painting done afterwards.

“Michael's been bawling all day,” he volunteers suddenly.

“Why?”

“Why do you think? Vic, of course.” It comes out sneering as if Michael is being a silly faggot or my question is the height of stupidity. Well, there’s confirmation then that Vic really is positive. He doesn’t even need to spell it out and it doesn’t come as a great shock.

He’s upset. I knew it. Why can he never just say that? Would it kill him to admit that he’s upset because Michael is upset and that he’s worried about Vic? The guy is the only decent father figure he’s ever had – even though Vic is only three years older than me and I would baulk at being considered a father figure by or for Brian – it’s only natural that Brian would be upset that Vic is sick. Only he can’t admit that.

“It’s not a death sentence anymore, you know.”

I expect a flippant remark to that, but what I get instead is a quiet, “The meds aren’t working.”

“Does he have insurance?”

“Yeah, but they can’t find anything that works for him.”

“How did he get it?”

Brian snorts. “How do you think? The usual way.”

I’m simply too tired for this kind of conversation. As much as I would like to be there for him, I’ve had a long day myself and I don’t want to be sneered at tonight. I want to talk about Vic, want to know what’s going on with him because I like the guy, but I don’t want to have to drag every little detail out of Brian while he’s using me as his verbal punching bag.

I’m contemplating taking a shower and getting the loft ready for the night before going to bed, but I’m too tired to move just now. I would like to talk about Emmett as well, but I couldn’t bear Brian calling him pathetic. I know Brian likes Emmett, but it’s one of those things that he would never admit to. Why can’t he show a little sympathy? It’s not a sign of weakness, not in my eyes. But I know that if I talk about Emmett, Brian will only mock me for being upset about him.

“He had some romantic notion about monogamy,” he carries on unexpectedly. “I always said it’s myth. No two guys will ever only fuck each other and if you assume that, you get a rude awakening, like Vic.”

Okay, he obviously wants to talk. Only, I’m not up for the monogamy discussion at the moment. We’ve talked about this before – hypothetically – and we always come to an impasse pretty quickly. I believe that it’s possible for two guys to be monogamous, although obviously not when the other guy is Brian. He thinks that no guy, gay or straight, can keep it in his pants, nor can he think of a reason why they should. Depending on my mood, I agree with him on that last point or not.

“Ben and Michael are monogamous.”

He laughs without humor. “They’re using condoms by default. Nothing’s stopping either one of them from fucking around. They can pretend all they like, I don’t believe a word of it.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, you would. They’re about as monogamous as Mel and Linz.”

“Ah well, if we’re talking about people resisting when _you_ come along, that’s a different matter altogether. Of course, no one can resist _you_.” Where did that come from? I didn’t intend to be that snappy.

“See, I knew you were still pissed about that.”

I sigh, wondering if there would be any point in telling him that I’m not jealous of Lindsay and that what happened between them only worries me for its potential to cause upheaval among our friends. Would there be any point in telling him that I feel terrible talking to Melanie, knowing what I know while she’s in the dark?

This is the difference between us. Brian can make a decision and then take a course of action and never think twice about it again. No apologies, no regrets. I can’t do that. I’ve made the decision not to tell Melanie because I think it can do more harm than good, but that doesn’t mean that the situation doesn’t bother me any longer.

“Lindsay bothers me no more than any guy you’ve fucked since I met you.” Well, at least that isn’t a lie. I get up and walk around the loft naked, tidying up, switching off lights and setting the alarm. Then I decide against a shower and go back to bed.

“What’s with you today?” There’s some annoyance in his voice and he’s frowning at me, as if he really can’t tell.

“I had a long day and I’m tired. I don’t wanna fight.”

“I’m not fighting. All I said was…”

“…that everybody fucks around and it’s stupid to assume otherwise or be upset about it. I heard you.”

He hates it when I finish his sentences. And I hate that nothing ever changes. I love him, more than anything, but sometimes I can feel my inner resources dwindling, have felt that way for a while.

He turns onto his side, facing me, with his arm stretched along the pillows. “Hey,” he says softly. “Com’ ere.”

I scoot closer and rest my head in the crook of his shoulder. My forehead finds a home against his chest and I put my arm around his waist. His other arm comes to rest on my body, his hand splayed against my back, stroking gently. I take a deep breath in relief and just before I drop off to sleep, I feel him kiss my hair.

 

When I get to my studio at PIFA after class on Monday, I find a guy there whom I’ve never seen before. For the last year I’ve been renting a studio here because they’re cheap and I was fed up with painting in my loft and with lugging my work backwards and forwards. The downside is that I have to share because there aren’t enough studio spaces for every student. I’m lucky that I’m even allowed to rent one because I’m only part-time.

“Who are you?” I ask, not too friendly because I’m always worried about my paintings. Trixie, the girl I’m sharing the studio with, has this unfortunate habit of having lots of friends round while she works. Usually, I just put on my MP3 player and ignore everyone. But today she’s not even here.

“Name’s Jon,” the guy says, without looking up from constructing what looks like a work bench.

“Where’s Trixie?”

“She quit. I’m your new roomie.”

“Oh.”

I take a good look at him. He’s maybe about my age and I’m sure I haven’t seen him around. I would have noticed because anybody who’s not a teenager sticks out a mile and he’s hot, too. Tall, dark and handsome, as they say. I can see the muscles rolling under his thin t-shirt as he’s tightening the screws with a screwdriver.

“I’m Justin.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Ah, well, not the talkative type then. That will make a pleasant change from Trixie, who never seemed to shut up. I have no idea why she might have quit, but she was only in her first year, so maybe she decided that Art isn’t her thing after all. Her paintings were for shit anyway.

I start on my painting, which is half-finished already and coming along nicely. But I keep getting distracted by Jon, who, after finishing with the bench, is in and out of the room, bringing in all sorts of materials, mainly different metals, but also wood and plastics. His body is nicely toned, probably from lugging all this stuff around.

“What is it you do?” I ask finally.

“Sculptures.”

Three hours later that’s still the only exchange of words we’ve had. Jon isn’t actually working yet, just sorting through his materials and cleaning and setting out a huge array of tools. Then Brian turns up. He has the jeep today, so he’s here to pick me up. I realize that I got lost in my work in the end and I’m late.

Brian’s looking at Jon with unconcealed interest and Jon, who has ignored me all this time, keeps looking at Brian, too.

“New roomie?” Brian asks with a smirk.

“New roomie,” I confirm.

I start washing my paint brushes and ignore Brian’s open cruising. Jon seems a little distracted by it but otherwise doesn’t pay any attention, although I’m pretty convinced that would change very quickly if Brian were really trying his luck. This is just habit. Brian can’t look at a hot guy without checking him out. In the end, I practically push him out the door.

“Could you please not fuck my new roomie?” I say, as we’re walking down the corridor.

“Why? Are you keeping him for yourself?”

“No. I just think it could get awkward if you do. I don’t even know if he’s gay.”

“He’s gay all right.”

“I bow to your experience.”

“You should. Why are you so tetchy?”

“He’s got hammers, and drills, and welding equipment.” I can see a lot of noise in my future.

Brian puts his arm around me and pulls me closer, while we’re still walking. “I could hammer and drill you, and I’m sure it would weld us together for quite a while.”

I laugh and push him off. “When we get home.”

“I was picturing you naked on that work bench.”

I laugh again and shake my head. There’s never a dull moment with Brian. He pulls me close again and stops walking, bending his head down slowly to kiss me. Ignoring all the people weaving their way around us, I kiss him back. Kissing in public outside Liberty Avenue still makes me a little uncomfortable, but PIFA is a safe place to do that. I suspect that half the male students are gay anyway.

Brian has been a little clingy recently, which is both wonderful and scary. When he goes through phases like this, as he does periodically, I’m always worried that I will get used to it and then it will hurt all the more when he inevitably feels stifled and starts acting out again. I’m tired of being careful and reserved all the time.

He draws away with a put-upon sigh when his cellphone goes off.

“Your timing’s for shit, Mikey,” he says by way of a greeting and then the grin is wiped off his face in a second by whatever Michael has to say. “Mikey….Mikey…. _Michael!_ Stay put. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He’s already striding down the corridor before he’s even shut his phone and I rush to keep up with him.

“Can you drop me off at Allegheny Hospital?” he asks, passing me the car keys. “Vic’s been admitted.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Okay.” He sounds neither pleased nor annoyed about my suggestion.

By the time we get there, Vic has already been moved to his own room. Michael is standing outside, pressed against the corridor wall as if that is all that’s keeping him up right now. His face shows obvious signs of relief when he sees us, or rather Brian – I don’t think he really cares whether I’m there or not.

I stop by the window into the room and watch Debbie as she sits uncharacteristically still, holding her brother’s hand. Vic looks asleep. There’s a drip into one of his arms, but other than that there are no machines, beeping or otherwise. Is that a good or a bad sign?

I look down the corridor to where Brian’s crowding Michael against the wall with his body. He’s stroking his hair saying, “He’s not gonna die,” a few times. Michael is crying freely now, all snotty nose and sobbing hiccups. I envy him this. When the situation demands it, Brian is always there for him, caring and consoling, and being the adult in the relationship. With us, it’s always me who has to be strong and mature. If I broke down like Michael, Brian would lose all respect for me.

“I’m not strong enough for this,” Michael is saying, noisily snorting in air through his nose.

“Yes, you are. Remember when you stayed with me at the hospital for almost all of those three days? I couldn’t have gotten through that without you. You were strong then and you’re strong now. And Vic’s not gonna die.”

He can only mean the time when we had that accident and I’m taken aback by the way his voice almost cracks on those words. I know he still feels guilty about that. He won’t take the wheel when we are both in the car, while I’m fit to drive and he always checks that I put my seatbelt on. I feel a wave of love come over me because he always takes everything in so deeply, even when he appears to shake it all off without much care. Sometimes I wish people could see what I see.

“You’re always saying that,” Michael pipes up.

“And wasn’t I right about Ben when he was sick? We’ll get through this, you’ll see.”

He’s so very different with Michael. Whenever we have a conversation, he’s always brutally honest, no embellishments, no white lies, just the unadulterated truth as he sees it, however much it may hurt. He rarely tries to console me when I’m upset and his idea of cheering me up is a good fuck. Not that I would even dare to show any weakness in front of him anyway. It’s one of the pitfalls of having a relationship with a much younger guy.

After a while, Michael calms down enough to go into the room. Brian and I sit around in the corridor for a couple of hours, drinking terrible coffee and not saying much. I now he’s worried but I also know that he won’t talk about it. Then Ben turns up. He’s been in a faculty meeting and had his phone switched off. I wonder whom Michael called first, him or Brian.

It turns out that Vic collapsed at home and Debbie panicked and called an ambulance. He’s severely dehydrated from not eating and drinking enough and the doctors want to keep him in overnight. Otherwise he’s fine, or as fine as you can be with HIV when the medication has no discernible effect.  Ben tells us a lot of medical stuff about T-cells and viral loads that I vaguely remember from when he himself was hospitalized last year.

Eventually Brian and I go home. There’s nothing we can do to help and Ben will look after Michael. But the next day we all meet up at Debbie’s. Our ranks have swelled to include Ted and Emmett and even Lindsay and Melanie, although Lindsay says she’s not feeling too well and they soon go home. Maybe she doesn’t like sick people. Quite frankly, I can’t imagine her giving hands-on care to anybody anyway.

I’m astonished how involved Brian is. It’s unsurprising that he’s there for Michael but he also sits with Vic in his bedroom for two hours. For a few days, Debbie divides her time between looking after Vic, trying to feed her guests, going to work and sleeping very little. Then Ted devises a schedule for all of us and it’s very intricate, taking everybody’s other commitments into account, while never leaving either Debbie or Vic on their own for a single minute.

Even though nobody says it, we all believe that this is a temporary situation that will come to a natural end with Vic’s eventual death, but it needs to be sustainable for a few weeks. Michael has moved into his old room, refusing to leave the house for any other reason than to go to work. Ben turns up every day after he’s finished at the university, but he needs to go home at night to look after Hunter, who refuses to come to Deb’s. I realize that this must be really frightening for him. He’s practically seeing his own future playing out and it’s not pretty.

One silver lining of the situation is that Debbie seems to have made her peace with Ben. Up until now, she has always made it clear how much she resents him for putting Michael's life at risk by being positive. The implication was always that he contracted the disease through his own recklessness and has no right to be anywhere near her son because of that. Suddenly, she has a much loved brother in exactly the same situation, getting infected by a trusted long-term partner through no fault of his own and she no longer has the luxury to close her eyes to the truth. On top of that, Ben is now the source of endless, detailed information and experience. Seeing them together makes it difficult to remember that they were barely talking not so long ago.

She’s also starting to treat Brian better. She often smiles softly at him or sometimes strokes his hair as she walks past, which she hasn’t really done in two years. She blamed Brian for introducing Michael to Ben in the first place and even if she could have forgiven him for that, she hated that he refused to take sides when she asked him to persuade Michael to break it off with Ben. She knew as well as anybody in our group that Brian was the one person Michael would have listened to. Only, Brian always kept out of it. She never forgave him for that, said she always knew he was a bad influence.

It pains me to see how much Brian soaks up her attention. He seems to ignore it, like he always ignored her animosity, but I can see how much it means to him. This is one of the reasons I’ve tried to keep my distance from the family for so long. I couldn’t forgive either. To me, it was incomprehensible how she could treat Brian that way, when she knew how important she was to him and how badly he was treated by his own mother. I would have expected more of her.

Over the next three weeks, Brian practically lives at Debbie’s house, mainly because Michael is there and needs his support. I’m there almost every day after work, too, because Emmett and I have been assigned kitchen duty. It soon turns out that Emmett is a much better cook than I could ever hope to be and I resign myself to chopping vegetables for him.

The idea is that Debbie should be free to do other things, so things like cooking, cleaning and shopping are done by the rest of us. She goes to work still but no longer does extra shifts. The rest of the time she either sits with Vic or sleeps. Of the rest of us, the only people who get to see the patient are Michael, Ben and Brian. We are more there to give moral support to Debbie and Michael than for Vic.

After three weeks Vic comes downstairs one day, in his robe still, but at least he’s well enough to sit in front of the TV for a little while. I can’t help thinking that this might be a last energy spurt before the end, he certainly looks only one step removed from it. And then he surprises us all by saying that he would like to see Italy. Debbie is enthusiastic about it because there’s nothing she would deny him at the moment, but the rest of us are more cautious. Except for Brian, who’s all for it.

When we go home two hours later, Ted has already helped them book tickets online. There’s no stopping Debbie from doing something once she’s put her mind to it anyway, so our protests have been half-hearted and ceased very quickly.

“Do you really think going to Italy is good idea?” I ask Brian when we’re in bed. We’ve had a shower together and he’s lying on top of me smoothing my wet hair back.

“What’s the alternative? Sitting at home, waiting to die? Italy sounds like a much better idea to me.”

“What if he gets worse over there? Or even dies?” Quite frankly I’m not even sure if he will make it to Italy.

“Then she can bury him in the homeland. Since when have you turned into a Jewish mother? Or Michael?”

“I’m just being practical. She doesn’t know anyone over there. She doesn’t even speak the language.” However much Debbie always talks about her heritage, she’s about as Italian as Brian is Irish, meaning she’s first and foremost American and just likes to cultivate her ancestry because it’s a family tradition. Being able to cook Italian food doesn’t make you Italian.

He shrugs and leans down to kiss me as a start to round two, no doubt, when there’s a knock on the door. It’s more than a knock, it’s a pounding.

“What now?” I get up to find my sweatpants and a shirt to answer the door, while Brian just rolls onto his back and makes a grab for his cigarettes.

“I’m coming,” I shout on my way to the door, but they either don’t hear me or don’t care. Predictably, Brian snickers at that.  It’s not particularly late, so it could be anybody, except my mother, who would never make such a racket at any time of the day or night. But when I pull the door back, I’m surprised nonetheless.

Melanie has been to my loft only a handful of times. We usually meet when a group of us meet at Woody’s or the diner. There’s no real reason for that, it’s just a habit. I’ve only been to her house twice, as far as I can remember, and one of those occasions was for her housewarming party.

She strides past me into the loft, then whirls around to face me.

“Hello. Come right in, why don’t you?” I mutter to myself, before close the door. For a moment, I’m worried that she has bad news about Vic, but her first sentence tells me clearly that this is more personal. I knew this would happen eventually. It was inevitable.

“Did you know?”

“Pardon?”

“Did. You. Know?”

“You have to be more specific. Did I know what?” I’m not giving her any information as long as I can’t be sure what she’s talking about.

“Did you know about Lindsay and Brian? Fucking?”

I take a deep breath and don’t answer, but I don’t have to because she can see it in my face.

“Great! Just great! Am I the last to know?”

“I don’t think anybody knows, except you and me. I didn’t tell you because it’s not my place. Relationships are tricky. I didn’t know what was best.”

“Some friend you are.”

“I _am_ your friend, Mel, but Lindsay’s your girlfriend. It was her job to tell you. And there’s Brian… I’m just an innocent bystander. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Is he here?”

I move forward and place myself between her and the bedroom. I won’t have a confrontation in there. This is my space. They can have their fight someplace else.

“What are you gonna do? Shouting at him won’t change anything.” And Brian has no loyalty to her anyway. He would just sneer at her and I don’t want her any more hurt than she already is. But I can already hear Brian in the bedroom, rustling with his clothes. Then I see him coming down the steps through the other doorway. He’s put on his jeans, only half done up and he’s smirking.

I wish he wouldn’t do that. Sometimes a little contrition can go a long way. Okay, no amount of groveling is likely to appease Melanie right now, but there’s no reason to make it worse by being snarky.

“I want to know what you’re planning to do about the mess you created,” she hisses at him. At least she’s not trying to attack him, although she looks like she might any second now.

“Hey,” he says almost conversationally, “it’s not my fault that your girlfriend likes cock every once in a while. Believe me, I can relate.”

I involuntarily take a step forward, so that I can stop her if she throws herself at him. Her face contorts into pure hatred for a moment before she pauses and then smiles. It’s quite cold and satisfied and I’m already dreading what she’s going to say next.

“You don’t know, do you?” she grins at him.

Brian pretends to be unconcerned, but I know him well enough to know that he’s bringing up his defenses in a hurry. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Outwardly, all he does is shrug.

“Know what? That you’re obviously not enough for her?”

She looks at me as if to see if I know what she’s talking about and then she smiles a false, sickly sweet smile at Brian and drops the bombshell. “Lindsay’s pregnant, you asshole.”

I can see that Brian didn’t know. However much he has his facial expressions under control, I can see the tensing of his body and the nerve fluttering ever so slightly just above the jawline.  But he’s Brian and he would never allow himself to lose face, especially not in front of Melanie. So he shrugs again and says, “Congratulations. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Problem solved. You can pay me whatever you were going to pay the sperm bank, but I don’t take checks. Cash only.”

We both stare at him and I’m flooded with so many thoughts at the same time that it’s impossible to hold on to a single one. Melanie is quiet for a long time, while he just stares her down, seemingly unperturbed.

Then she turns to me. “I’m sorry,” she says and smiles sadly. “You deserve better.”

She has said that to me before, a few times actually, but it’s usually said in anger or exasperation, never with so much pity.

“’S all right,” I say on autopilot. “It’s not your fault.”

She nods and stalks out of the loft without another word.

 

*******

 

So, this is what it feels like when someone comes along and blows your life apart all around you while you’re still standing in the middle of it. I can hear Jack’s voice telling me to watch out for the ladies because they’re all out to catch you. How smug I felt then, thinking that it could never happen to me. Like father, like son. You really can’t escape your destiny.

And I’m sure I feel exactly the same way Jack felt when Mom told him she was pregnant. Only there’s no way I’m marrying Lindsay. She doesn’t expect that, right? She knows I’m gay. And she’s with Melanie and they want a kid anyway. I don’t. I never wanted to bring a kid into this world. I was quite happy for the Kinney name to die out with me. What the fuck would I do with a kid?

Neither Justin nor I have moved since Melanie’s announcement. Oh fuck! Justin! He’s going to go ballistic any second now. He’s always so exasperated when I fuck up, so disappointed and so fucking superior.

I walk back into the bedroom and sit on the bed, getting a cigarette out of the pack and lighting it automatically. Then I stare at the hardwood floor and listen to the white noise in my head until it settles down enough to allow me to think. Two possibilities: Lindsay will have the kid or she won’t. Best case scenario for me would be that she’ll decide that she doesn’t want it yet, or doesn’t want it to have me as a father. It might make me a bastard, but there it is. A baby really doesn’t fit into my life plan. It shouldn’t be too difficult to make her realize what a terrible father I would make.

Surely, Lindsay won’t want to keep it anyway. They may want a child, but they said they wanted to wait until Lindsay graduates. This is too early. And then there’s Melanie. There’s no way in hell that she will ever agree to this. She hates my guts. But if Lindsay decides to keep it anyway and they split up over this, that would really put me on the spot. I may have to drop out of college. Yeah, right. No way am I dropping out of college to work for some menial wages somewhere. How would that help the situation? Better to finish college and get a decent job after I graduate.

I could promise to stay away from them and just send a check every month. Melanie might go for that. Do I have any rights or do I just have responsibilities now? I have no idea. What I do know is that I have no money. I barely get by every month and if I didn’t have Justin…

Oh fuck! I crane my neck and see him still standing there, rooted to the same spot. I should go and talk to him. And say what exactly? What could I possibly say? This is it. This is the point where he will finally tell me that it’s gone too far. I’ve been waiting for this moment for four long years. I knew that one day he would either simply recognize me for what I am or I would fuck up so badly that he wouldn’t be able to ignore it any longer. Not in a million years would I have foreseen this scenario though.

I watch him as he comes out of his trance. He looks around as if he’s not quite sure where he is and then comes  into the bedroom. Without looking at me, he puts some clothes on. I can’t tell if he’s angry or just upset and I can’t think of anything to say to him.

“I’m going out.”

No shit, I worked that one out all by myself, with him picking up his keys and wallet and all. I wait for the inevitable, for him to tell me not to be here when he gets back, but he just walks out the loft and locks the door behind him.

So I wait. He hasn’t told me to leave, so I don’t. This doesn’t concern him and if he wants to make it his concern, he’ll have to say so. How does this have anything to do with him anyway? No one expects him to take responsibility or is upset with him over this. He can just carry on with his life as before. It’s my life that’s fucked up. And I still believe that this will all sort itself out anyway. Lindsay won’t keep it and everything will go back to normal.

But I know that things don’t work that way for Justin. Even if Lindsay already had an abortion, he would still be upset. For Justin the end doesn’t justify the means. We had this discussion numerous times. He’s upset that it happened, regardless of the consequences. If Lindsay has the kid, that will just make it worse, but not having it won’t make this situation any better. Not for him. He has these morals that he lives by. And he judges everyone around him by them. I’ve fallen short – again – and that’s what counts for him. The consequences he will deal with – admirably, no doubt – but the actual fuck-up, he might not be able to forgive.

I go back to bed because I’m not waiting up for him. That’s not me. I’m here because I see no reason to leave and I’m too tired to go back to the dorm now. It has nothing to do with waiting to see what Justin will say. Or being worried about it. Nothing’s changed. He’s not my dad or my wife. He has no right to admonish me for my behavior. But he can tell me to leave. It’s his place and if he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore, that’s his choice, too. I’ll deal with it when we get there. That doesn’t mean that it worries me.

Justin doesn’t come back for more than three hours. When he gets in, he takes a shower. He went out tricking? I didn’t expect that. Justin doesn’t really act out. When he has a problem, he broods over it or he goes to Daphne. Fucking it away is my style, not his. Maybe he just wants to think for a bit longer. He often does that in the shower. He wouldn’t really go and fuck someone else, would he?

I know he tricks occasionally, but that’s because he’s a guy and that’s what we do. He only tricks when I haven’t come here for a while. On the other hand, how would I know? He’s asked me not to talk about my tricking and he certainly doesn’t talk about his. How would I know how much he tricks? Or if he has a fuck buddy? I’m just assuming that his tricking is not on the same scale as mine, but you never know.

He comes to bed and then he just lies there, looking at the ceiling. Occasionally, he shuts his eyes for a while but they always open again soon after. Looks like he can’t sleep either. I just want to fuck the shit out of him, to make him forget about whatever he’s been doing for the last few hours and about how fucked up everything is. But I don’t know if he would let me.

After a while, he turns away from me but in doing so he moves his body closer to me and when I turn on my side and spoon up behind him, he doesn’t move away. I drape my arm over his body and pull him close.

 

Justin is up before me the next day, which is no great surprise as he’s working at the gallery today, whereas I don’t have to be in class until ten. However, he usually wakes me up for a morning fuck, unless he’s running late, which he isn’t today. I hear him pottering about in the kitchen and then leave.

For a while, I try to go back to sleep but I’m out of sorts. I should just bite the bullet and go to see Lindsay. I’ll have to eventually, might as well get it out of the way. It’s unlikely that she won’t see eye to eye with me on the subject, but we do have to talk about it, much as I’d rather not.

When I see her in the corridor outside her classroom, she’s surrounded by her friends, but she seems a little detached, not gossiping like she usually does. She looks at me, but there’s no smile and no greeting.

“Hi, Brian,” one of her friends greets me. I think her name is Paula and she usually flirts with me like there’s no tomorrow. Either she’s oblivious that I’m gay or she is one of those girls who thinks I just haven’t met the right girl yet. Well, here’s a newsflash, I have and it made no difference.

“We need to talk,” I say, ignoring Paula and everyone else around us.

“I have class in five minutes.” That’s a new one. Lindsay’s never shot me down before.

I raise my eyebrows and she lowers her head and sighs. Grabbing her bag from the floor, she says, “See you later,” to the other girls, who have fallen silent, watching us in rapt attention, and follows me along the corridor.

I lead us to the cafeteria, which is practically deserted at this time of the morning. Lindsay ambles along to one of the tables in the far corner, next to the big window, while I go up to the counter and get both of us a coffee. I already had breakfast. There’s no way I will not avail myself of Justin’s food when I’m staying at the loft. Nobody in their right mind would choose cafeteria food over his and he always stocks my favorites.

On the way to the table I wonder if drinking coffee is okay when you’re pregnant. How would I know? Claire smoked and drank through both of hers. And if things go the way I anticipate them to, it won’t make any difference anyway.

I push Lindsay’s coffee over to her and sit in the seat opposite. She’s watching me in silence, stirring her coffee absently. And now I don’t know what to say. This is one conversation I never envisioned having.

“Melanie told you then?” she says finally.

“You could say that. Why didn’t you?”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me for the last few weeks.” She sounds indignant. I suppose she has a right to be. I just wanted her to calm down a bit after what happened.

“What are you gonna do?”

“What am _I_ gonna do? Don’t you mean _we_?”

Okay, this is not going the way I expected at all. Time to change tack. I don’t want this to deteriorate into a screaming match and I can see that she’s on edge. Only, I don’t know the protocol here. She’s obviously annoyed with me and I really don’t want to make the situation worse, for her or me.

“Okay. Let’s talk basics. Are you keeping it?”

“Of course.” Her answer is out so quick, I don’t even have time to turn pleading eyes on her. I’m not sure that my disappointment and shock don’t show in my face either.

“What? You thought I’ll get rid of the problem for you with a quick trip to the clinic? Sorry to disappoint you.”

Now is the time to tell her not to be stupid, to think about her future, about Melanie, about the kid, about me. If I play my cards right, I’m sure I can make her see reason. I could offer to go with her to the clinic, to hold her hand throughout the procedure if I must. I open my mouth to say so, but what comes out is completely different.

“I’ll support whatever decision you make.”

She looks surprised, as well she may be, and smiles for the first time. “Really?” The happiness in her voice almost kills me, because everything inside me screams, _No! Don’t do this. This is a huge fucking mistake. Make it go away. Please._ But there’s no way that my kid will grow up to be told one day that its dad wanted it aborted. No way in hell.

“Sure. It’s just… how do you see this working?”

It’s ironic. I’m almost sure I can persuade her to have an abortion and it’s what I want her to do. The whole situation is fucked up. What chance would a kid have with parents like us, still in college, with no money, no job, and no intention of bringing it up together? Then there’s Melanie, who hates me and might well remove herself from the picture. Not to mention how high and drunk Lindsay and I both were that night. That can’t be healthy. But I can’t say anything because if she doesn’t have an abortion, I don’t want my kid knowing that that’s what I wanted. And because I can’t say anything, the chances of this going my way are virtually nil. Catch 22.

“What are you offering?” she asks, looking at me from under her eyelashes.

Uh-uh, I know that look. “Well, I’m not gonna marry you.”

She lowers her head but not before I can see the disappointment and hurt there.

“You cannot be serious. I’m gay, Lindsay. You’re a lesbian, for fuck’s sake. Even in your most demented dreams you couldn’t have thought that we would be playing happy families.”

“We could try. We get on so well together. We could make a go of it… for the baby.”

“Lindsay.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb to keep my temper. “Living together for the sake of the kid isn’t gonna work. My parents did that and, believe me, it didn’t work.”

“Your parents were together until your father died. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“My father was a violent drunk and my mother’s a frigid bitch. They had a hateful marriage. The only reason they didn’t get divorced was because my mother’s more concerned with where she’ll end up after death than before. And, believe me, Claire and I often wished they would have.”

She looks shocked. Of course, she doesn’t know what went on in our house. She only saw each of my parents once – separately. After a few moments, she smiles softly and puts her hand on mine.

“But we wouldn’t be like that. We’re friends. That’s a better basis for marriage than love sometimes.”

“I’m gay, for fuck’s sake. I don’t like women. Not in that sense. What happened was a one-off.” I pull my hand away because her touch makes my skin crawl all of a sudden. That never happened before. Normally, even hugging and kissing her is pleasant.

Her smile turns seductive, or what she considers seductive. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

Jeez, why is she not getting a clue? “No, I can’t tell you that.” I wait for her smile to turn triumphant before I carry on, in my coldest voice, “Because I can’t fucking remember any of it. Not a single thing.”

“What?” She’s staring at me now and I can see that I finally got through to her. Only, she looks so hurt that I’m almost tempted to soften the blow, but not quite. If she doesn’t get the message now, she never will and this will turn into even more of a disaster.

“I was high. I remember going to your room and drinking and taking some pills and the next thing I remember is waking up in your bed. There’s nothing in between. Zilch.”

“But you… you must have enjoyed it because… because you…”

I snort a laugh. “Got hard? Shot my load? Lindsay, I get hard rubbing up against a tree. It’s nothing personal.”

“Oh God.” She puts her hand to her face and I know it’s theatrics. Tears cried in front of an audience always are. They’re a tool to manipulate. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t work. I don’t mind being manipulated as long as I’m aware of it and can work out what the other person is after. Then I can use their manipulation against them.

I change to the seat next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

Predictably, she throws her arms around me and hugs me tight, burying her head in my shoulder. I pat her back a little uncomfortably, and wonder why the only person in my life who doesn’t try to manipulate me is Justin. He hates playing games, even when I do. Or maybe he’s so smart that I don’t notice when he’s doing it.

“We’ll get through this.”

She sniffles and moves back a little so she can look at me. “Will you come with me when I tell my parents?”

“What? _No._ That would create entirely the wrong impression, don’t you think? Take Melanie. You can come clean about being a carpet muncher at the same time. Get it all over with in one fell swoop.”

She sniffles again. “Melanie threw me out.”

“Why? She wanted a kid, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, but not the way it happened. And not with you in the mix.”

“I’m sure she’ll come round if you play your cards right.” I know she will because she’s besotted with Lindsay. And if she doesn’t, I will have a whole different set of problems.

“I’m willing to give her up.” She moves back a bit more and looks at me hopefully.

She’s really tenacious when she wants something. “You shouldn’t. You don’t want to do this alone.” I’m well aware of the hypocrisy of my suggestion because I’m basically telling her that she should stay with Melanie for the sake of the kid. But she has to get this idea that she and I will somehow end up together with the kid out of her head and fast. “I’m not giving up Justin.”

“What do you mean?”

Oh fuck. Where did that come from? I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but now that I did, I’m not taking it back. Maybe it will make it clear to her that I don’t feel about her that way. The people in our ‘family’ have this annoying habit of dismissing Justin from my life as if years of spending time with him and fucking him at every opportunity means nothing. There’s a reason I’m doing that. I like doing it. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it. Just because I’m not stupid enough to think that it’s something that it isn’t, doesn’t mean that I would give it up without a backward glance.

She looks at me and her eyes water again. “Oh my God. You love him. You always pretend that you don’t, but you do.”

“I don’t believe in love, I believe in fucking. And that’s not the issue here. You need to forget about us living together and playing mom and dad and decide what you want to do.”

She’s still staring at me and I’m giving her my most steely look back. Finally I can see understanding dawn on her and she pulls herself up straight in the chair. Her voice is icy. “Melanie doesn’t want anything to do with your child. She’s worried that she’ll have to put up with you all the time.”

“Fine. Tell her I promise to never see the kid.”

“Yeah, you would.”

I lift my hands in a ‘what the fuck?’ gesture and drop them again. I’m trying to make this easy for her and she’s still not happy? What is that about?

“You would never see me either,” she says coldly.

“I’m aware of that. It wouldn’t work otherwise.”

Her chair scrapes across the floor as she gets up abruptly. “You really are an asshole, Brian.” And with that she sweeps out of the room with her head held high, like the good little diva that she is.

_Yeah, I’m aware of that as well._

The three other people in the cafeteria shoot me some curious glances, but ignore me otherwise. I stay a bit longer, drinking first my own coffee and then Lindsay’s, which really doesn’t have enough sugar in it. Then I decide to go for a run, as it slowly sinks in that I’m going to be a father.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

**PART  FIVE**

I sit in front of my painting, but I haven’t even started mixing any paints. I didn’t come here for that. I came to be alone, but that idea is shot to pieces by Jon being here. Just my rotten luck that he chooses tonight of all nights to work late. Since we met, I got to know him a little and I really like him. He is taciturn most of the time, but his silence speaks of self-sufficiency rather than moodiness or insecurity. When he has something to say, he does and it’s usually very funny.

At the moment I don’t want him to talk. I’m angry. With Brian, with Lindsay, with myself and the world in general. Sometimes I can’t believe the things that come out of Brian’s mouth. Melanie tells him that Lindsay is pregnant and he demands payment? I know he was just being flippant, covering his surprise and not wanting to lose face. But really, he couldn’t have tried just this once to react like a normal person? Or at least just shut the fuck up? No, he just had to taunt Melanie.

Even Brian can’t be so dense that he doesn’t realize that this changes everything, his whole life and it isn’t just about him anymore. The question is whether Brian can even comprehend something not being about him. I know how his mind works. He thinks he’ll be able to persuade Lindsay to have an abortion and then he’ll never think about it again.

It makes me angry sometimes that life seems to always give him an out. No matter what he does, he always comes out on top. All his friends fall over themselves to accommodate him all the time and to forgive him when he fucks up. No one ever makes any demands on him, so he has no reason to change, to grow. Although I’m not so very different in that.

But I think he may be mistaken this time. Because Lindsay will take this opportunity to bind their lives together permanently. There’s no way that she will let him off the hook. And that just makes me angry. No one’s thinking of the child here. For Brian it’s an inconvenience he would like to get rid of and for Lindsay it’s a means to an end. This has disaster written all over it. I’m torn between wishing that Lindsay will stick to her guns, so that Brian will have to face the music for once and hoping that she will opt for an abortion because no child should have to start life with those odds.

And I’m angry with myself. I have been with Brian for over four years and in all that time I have made very little headway. He still drinks and takes drugs like being drunk and high is the ultimate goal in life, he still tricks like we’re not even in a relationship because he won’t acknowledge that we are. I have been trying to steer him towards a more moderate behavior, but whenever anything or anyone touches on his insecurities, he goes off the rails.

I’m tired. I’m tired of being all-understanding and all-forgiving. After all this time, I’m starting to ask myself when _my_ needs will be taken into consideration. Just because I understand Brian doesn’t mean that his behavior doesn’t hurt. And the only person I can ever talk to is Daphne, because everyone else always just tells me to let go, to leave him, to think of myself for a change. But how can I? I knew very early on in the relationship that it was going to be tough. It was tough from the beginning, but I took it on and I promised myself that I would see it through. Only, I would like to see some results, just some little ones. Is that too much to ask?

Brian craves attention, but he craves love even more. If he would only let himself be loved without being scared of it, his life would be so much easier – and mine, too. I could never let him go because that would just tell him that he was right all along. It would crush him and I couldn’t do that to him.  But on days like these I am just hanging on by the skin of my teeth, telling myself over and over again how young he is and that there’s still time. And I try to silence the voice at the back of my mind which tells me that maybe his need is greater than my love. Maybe there isn’t enough love in the world to fill the void inside of him.

Jon comes ambling over and stands next to me, looking at my painting.

“Boyfriend trouble?”

I nod. “You have no idea.”

He just stands there as if my painting, which has only a few lines on it so far, is the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. Over the last three weeks I have decided that he’s one of the coolest guys I ever met. He has effortlessly managed to convey the fact that he likes me without ever saying a word. I haven’t worked out yet whether his liking me means that he wants to fuck, have a relationship or just be friends. Since all I’m offering is the latter, not knowing is good enough for now.

“It’s Brian,” I say finally. Jon has met Brian a few times and he seems merely entertained by his cruising, which I’m sure vexes Brian no end, while it amuses me in equal measures.

“Well, duh, since he’s the boyfriend.”

That’s all he has to say and the words just pour out of me. It’s really liberating to speak to someone who doesn’t know me or Brian and has no preconceived ideas about us. Of course, it takes longer that way. Our relationship is so complex and I don’t want him to get the wrong idea, so I’m trying to paint an objective picture of what’s going on that doesn’t cast Brian as the villain or me as an angel. I always hate it when people ask me why I’m even with Brian as if I’m just a feeble idiot.

After nearly twenty minutes, I get to the point I’m at now, still reeling from Melanie’s revelation earlier on and Brian’s reaction. Jon has pulled up a stool next to mine and hasn’t said much throughout. I don’t know what I’m expecting from him, certainly no great insights or solutions. It was nice enough just to be allowed to talk.

“So, you’re not exclusive?”

Or maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He either wasn’t paying attention or he’s gearing up to make a pass at me. Only, there’s no flirtation, he just seems to be pondering something.

“Of course not. Weren’t you listening?”

“But you play safe?”

“Always. Why?”

“No condom, dude.”

“Huh?”

“You may be gay but surely even you must know how it works, Justin. Pregnant means no condom.”

And that just proves that no matter how shitty things are, they can always get worse.

Why didn’t I think of that? Up until today it wasn’t really an issue. Brian and I have always used condoms. We never even discussed not using them, not once. With all the other sexual partners in our relationship, it would have been complete madness. I always trusted him in this. And I assumed that he had used one with Lindsay, too.

So what happened? He thought because Lindsay is a lesbian, he didn’t need protection? Because Lindsay is such a goody-two-shoes that she couldn’t possibly have anything nasty? That is some judgment call. Or was he too drunk and drugged out to bother? He says he can’t remember anything. And if that’s the case, how many other times has he been in that state and played Russian Roulette with his dick? He’s not exactly known for his moderation at the best of times.

I don’t feel particularly at risk from Lindsay. But wasn’t he worried about _her_? With his lifestyle, it’s careless in the extreme to have sex with her without a condom. I didn’t think he would endanger her like that. And why didn’t _she_ make sure they were safe?  Presumably she was more in control. Was she so keen to have him as a father for her child that she risked everything for that chance?

Either way, I don’t like the alternatives. Whether he did it without a condom because he was too far gone to bother or because he didn’t care that he was putting Lindsay at risk, I’m beginning to wonder if I even know him. This is one scenario I would have considered improbable, if not impossible, not so long ago.

Jon pats my shoulder in a friendly manner and when I look at him, he seems genuinely sympathetic.

“Didn’t mean to make it worse, dude.”

“S’alright. Not your fault.”

That’s the second time I’m telling someone that today. People seem to feel sorry for me and the only person who should apologize would never do it. Because he doesn’t owe me anything, not even consideration. At least not according to his philosophy.

Jon gets up and strolls back over to his half-finished sculpture, but he must be finished for the night because he is starting to clean his tools. I should go home, too. Or go somewhere at least, maybe Babylon. Some vigorous dancing or a trip to the backroom would be very welcome right now. I don’t feel like going home because I can’t face Brian just yet. I would probably scream at him. If he’s even there still. Avoidance is one of his favorite tactics. It’s quite possible that I won’t see him for quite a while.

As I haven’t started painting yet, I don’t have anything to clean up, so I just put my jacket on and make my way to the door. I should say something to Jon, maybe thank him, but I can’t think of anything. I linger in the doorway, and watch him rub down a saw as if that’s his only concern in life. I like that about him, that he can get so lost in his work.

It only takes me four strides from the door over to him. I pull on his arm to turn him towards me and, ignoring his surprised expression, I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. He can’t really do anything about it because he has his hands full, but I can feel him fumbling about for the table to put the saw and the cloth down and then he grabs me and pulls me close. He smells faintly of oil and metallic smoke.

When I break the kiss and start undoing his pants, he puts his hands on mine to stop me. I look up into his eyes.

“You’re just venting, right?” he says.

“Yeah.”

He nods a few times. “Okay.” Then he pulls me into another kiss and I can feel his hands down my pants and my brain switches off just after the thought that I’m going to be naked on his work bench after all.

When I get home, I’m surprised to find Brian still there. I have a shower and then I crawl into bed next to him. For the first time since I met him, I wish I was alone. I need to get my thoughts and my feelings straight. Fucking Jon was a stupid thing to do because I like the guy and that probably ruined any chance of us becoming real friends. That is my only regret. I don’t have any friends outside the family, apart from Daphne, and Jon would have been perfect.

And then there’s Brian. I’m no longer angry with him, it’s more like disappointment. And at the same time I have that low-grade feeling of guilt that I always have when I’ve been tricking. I know he doesn’t care and he would laugh at my guilty conscience, but it’s there nonetheless. He doesn’t get to dictate my morals and I will never accept that tricking should be quite that casual.

And I have an indistinct feeling of sadness and despair when I think of how little he cares about what I’ve been doing, our relationship, my life in general. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Sometimes I get so lonely it hurts and strangely enough I feel like that even when he’s right there – especially when he’s right there.

I’m lying next to him and try to sleep. I know he’s still awake, but he wouldn’t want to talk anyway. Not his style. And I don’t want to have sex. I wish he was better at reading my moods, but even if he was, he wouldn’t give me what I need. After a while, I turn onto my side and I move a little closer toward him, not quite touching, just close enough to feel a little of his heat on my back, so that I won’t feel so damned alone.

I can hear the bedcovers rustle and feel the mattress dip a little more and then he’s there, molded against my back with his arm thrown over my body, pulling me even closer. I rest my hand on his forearm encircling my chest and close my eyes. Occasionally he can read me just fine and in those moments I don’t have any doubts at all.

 

Brian is still asleep by the time I leave for work the next day. I don’t know what he’ll make of the fact that I don’t wake him for sex like I usually do, but I can’t worry about that right now. I have to think before I can deal with him.

Work is busy as usual. We’re preparing a new exhibition for unknown artists. Sidney wanted to call it ‘Warhol’s Heirs’ but I thought it would give the wrong impression and not every piece of art coming out of Pittsburgh needs to be connected with Warhol. So we’re calling it simply ‘Emerging Artists’. I will have two pieces in the show, which I am quietly pleased about.

So far I’ve sold three paintings through the gallery – in two years. It’s a start, I suppose. Two of them got mentioned in the papers, but Pittsburgh is just too provincial to make an impact anywhere else. So when Sidney tells me he has secured the attendance of Simon Caswell, the New York critic who writes for _Art Forum_ , I’m excited. It’s a great opportunity for me and the other artists in the show.

I take advantage of the early closing today to pay a visit to Daphne. She looks slightly flushed when she opens the door to me and after four years with Brian, it sets off an immediate warning in my brain.

“Bad time?”

She pulls a face. “Kinda.”

I nod. “I’ll come back another time.”

She grins in agreement, then changes her mind, turning serious. “No. You look like you had a reason to come here. Come in.”

I’m a bit reluctant, but she just grabs my arm and pulls me inside all the way to the living room. Steve, who’s recumbent on the couch, startles and then stands up in a hurry, buttoning up his shirt. “Hey, Justin.” He looks about and finds his spectacles, which he cleans on his shirt tail a little before putting them on.

“Hey.” I look at Daphne, a little uncomfortable for the first time since I’ve known her. I’ve never before been unsure whether I’m entirely welcome.

I met Steve a couple of weeks ago when Daphne brought him to Woody’s. I think it was her litmus test and he passed with flying colors. Brian was there as well and spent twenty minutes making increasingly explicit passes at Steve, who laughed all of them off. Then Brian congratulated Daphne on the fact that her boyfriend is definitely straight and went to play pool. He came back after two games and started molesting me at the table. He kissed me and whispered dirty suggestions in my ear just loud enough for the other two to hear, while they watched with obvious amusement. Finally Brian gave up and went back to the pool table. I was convinced that he would be ticked off enough to find a trick, but he didn’t and I had a long discussion with Daph and Steve about the psychological meaning of Modern Art. It was a pleasant evening.

“No Brian today?” Steve says with a smile.

“No, you’re safe today.”

“Shame. I like being chased.” He grins at Daphne, who grins back and raises her eyebrows. I’ve never seen her like this before. She’s been seeing Steve for a few weeks now, since she met him at that symposium she went to. I like him, but he has that boy-next-door look that I didn’t think would ever attract Daphne, never mind keeping her interested for this long. Although his spectacles make him look somewhat hot, in a studious kind of way.

“I’ll be upstairs,” he says and ambles out of the room, picking up a book from the table as he goes.

“I’m sorry, Daph, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

“It’s almost impossible not to interrupt anything at the moment.”

“Really?” I look at the open door Steve disappeared through. “He doesn’t look it.” He looks like his idea of entertainment is what he’s doing now, reading a book – a textbook.

“Yeah. Isn’t it great?” She leaves the room for a moment and I sit down on the couch, after scrutinizing it for suspicious stains. Then I take one of the beers she brings back with her.

“So what’s he done this time?” she asks, settling next to me.

I already told her about Lindsay when I found out, so I tell her about the pregnancy and about Brian’s reaction and I don’t even leave out what happened with Jon.

“Lindsay won’t give up the baby,” she says with certainty. “She’s in love with him. She won’t give up that connection.”

I’m inclined to agree with her on that score. My problem is more with Brian. His reaction, first to sleeping with Lindsay and then to her being pregnant, has shattered my belief in him a little. He can be very callous and I always assumed it was just bravado. When he treats me that way, he usually comes round after a while and makes up for it somehow. But maybe that’s only because he wants something from me. Maybe he really is that cold when he doesn’t have anything to gain.

“He seems to want your help,” she says.

“How did you work that one out?”

“He’s been staying with you since it happened, hasn’t he?”

“He was hiding from Lindsay. And maybe softening me up for the big blow up when everybody finds out. So that I defend him like the loyal little boyfriend that I am.”

“Yeah, because that is so you. No will of your own. Have you considered that his reason for staying with you all this time may be something completely different?”

“Like what?”

“Maybe he’s just scared what you’ll do. He knows he’s fucked up, so maybe he’s just there all the time because he hopes he can stop you from breaking up with him. Or he’s just trying to enjoy what time he has left with you before it happens.”

I stare at my bottle. I wish I could be sure that what she says is true, because right now I need something to believe in. “He had sex without a condom, Daph.”

There’s a pause while she waits, but when I don’t say anything else, she says quietly, “But you’re not worried about the risks, are you?”

I glare at her. “Of course I am. And so should he be. If he was so convinced that she’s clean, then he should at least have had enough consideration for _her_ safety. They’re friends. And if he was too stoned for that, then I have to ask myself, how often he does it without a condom with other guys.”

“All good points, but that’s not really what’s bothering you, is it?”

“Well, enlighten me, by all means, what is bothering me then?”

She just looks at me. Sometimes it’s really hard to be friends with her, or rather sometimes it’s really hard to hear what she has to say, or in this case, what she makes me say. I look away and start picking at the label on my bottle. Daphne has nearly unending patience. It must be a professional trait.

The silence stretches between us. She’s watching me, but I can’t look at her, not even when I finally speak. I hate how small my voice sounds. “I thought that was the one thing he would only do with me.”

 

*******

 

Running always clears my head. At the end of the course, some things have crystallized into clarity. For starters, I’m going to be a father and that freaks me out. I don’t want this. The thought of having a child never entered my head before. What the fuck do I have to offer? The only thing I know for certain is that I will never lay hand on a kid. That’s a no-brainer and should be for everyone. But you can’t define your role in someone’s life by what you’re _not_ doing. It needs to be about what you’re willing to _do_.

I know that being the father gives me certain responsibilities. By law, I will be expected to pay for the kid, even I know that. So when I start work next year, part of my paycheck will go to Lindsay. That’s not too bad, better than having to drop out of college.  The baby isn’t due until after graduation and me actually graduating would benefit everyone. And I’m kind of glad that Lindsay will be graduating, too.

But apart from that, what else am I supposed to do? I won’t play happy families with Lindsay, that’s for sure. I just can’t. It would be a recipe for disaster. The most I can offer is the occasional uncredited guest appearance. But maybe that would do more harm than good. If the kid gets used to me, he or she might need more and I can’t give more. I can’t have anyone relying on me because I would fuck it up. I always do. And is it really so desirable to have someone like me around anyway? Someone who drinks and takes drugs and has more or less redefined promiscuity? Some role model I would be. I’ll be doing the poor thing a favor if I stay away.

I wonder if Lindsay’s parents will be willing to help out. She needs a place to stay and various other things, but if I take too much of an interest, she’ll get her hopes up again. And if I don’t take enough of an interest, my kid will grow up in a shithole. It might take years until I can offer any decent financial support. Will Lindsay even be able to cope living on her own? She’s not the most resourceful person. But maybe she doesn’t have to be.

 

Melanie stares at me in disbelief, when she comes in after her lunch break. I have my feet up on her desk, idly watching the smoke rings I’m blowing and grin at her.

“What the fuck are you doing in my office? How did you get in here?” She walks past me to sit behind her desk, giving my feet a good shove to dislodge them from the table.

“I told your secretary I’m an old friend.”

“And he _believed_ you?”

I shrug. “He’s gay. How could he resist me?”

“God, please tell me you didn’t fuck him.”

I could tell her that and it would be the truth – there was really no time for that – but where would  be the fun in that? So I just grin.

She sighs. “What do you want, Kinney?”

“I have a proposition for you.”

Her eyebrows come up, making me slightly queasy even thinking about what she’s thinking. Judging by her face, she’s feeling the same way. “Not that kind of a proposition. A deal. Between you and me.”

“You have nothing I could possibly want.”

“Well, there’s Lindsay. And the little matter of a baby.”

She starts looking through one of her files. “Lindsay’s no longer my concern.”

I lean forwards and dump my cigarette end in the coffee cup she left on her desk. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Here’s the deal. You get back with Lindsay, as you want to anyway – don’t lie – and to make things sweeter for you, I promise to stay away from the kid.”

“Promise?” She snorts. “Like I’d fall for that.” She pauses, while looking at me speculatively and scratching one of her wrists. “Here’s _my_ deal. You sign your parental rights over to me _and_ stay away from the baby, and that will release you from all financial obligations.”

“Sweet. Set it up and I’ll sign.”

She looks disgusted. What is it with women that when you make it easy for them, they don’t like it? She’s reacting exactly the same way Lindsay did this morning. “Legally, you can’t sign anything until the baby’s born. But Brian… this is permanent. You signing your rights over, means exactly that: you’ll have no rights to the child whatsoever.”

“Why do you sound like you’re trying to talk me out of this? This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“I wanted a child with Lindsay. Not with you and Lindsay.”

“Well, it’s not my fault that she loves me more than you.”

“That’s all it is for you, isn’t it? A competition. As long as everybody loves you best, all’s well in your world. Never mind what a mess it creates in other people’s lives. That’s why you can’t stand me, isn’t it? Because I can see right through you and you’ll never win me over.”

“The reason I can’t stand you is because you’re a bitch.”

“Well, at least I’m not an asshole.”

“Yeah, that would be kind of redundant with you being a muff-diver and all.”  

She bristles. “This isn’t going to work.”

“Wait.” I tap my thumbnail against my front teeth for a moment to gather my resolve. Making concessions to Melanie is really not my idea of fun. “My kid has the right to grow up in a house with two loving parents. I can’t provide that. So I’m here to make sure that someone else does.”

There’s a long pause. She’s looking at me and I take out another cigarette, waiting for her reply, just looking back at her. “Maybe you _are_ trying to do the right thing for once. First time for everything. Okay, I won’t stop you from seeing the baby if we meet somewhere, let’s say at Debbie’s or the diner. But I don’t want you round my house to play daddy either. And no visitation rights.”

She’s only doing what’s sensible anyway. She can’t stop Lindsay from giving me access and she probably knows that. Unless she wants to apply the strong arm of the law, of course, and get out a restraining order or something. But I’m not worried about that. “I don’t want visitation rights. Or spend time in your house. The kid’s all yours.”

“Good. Then we’re clear. I’ll set up a letter of intent for you to sign for now. And when the baby’s born, you’ll sign over your parental rights to me.”

“Fine.” I get up and walk towards the door. This has really gone a lot easier than I anticipated.

“And Brian?”

I turn to her and raise my eyebrow.

“You fuck me over on this one and you’ll live to regret it. There’s a child to consider.”

“Don’t worry, Mel. I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last person on Earth.”

She huffs a laugh, shakes her head and turns to her computer. On the way out, I stop by her secretary’s desk long enough to persuade him to follow me into the men’s room.

 

Justin isn’t home when I get to the loft, although it’s early closing at the gallery. It works in my favor because it gives me time to have a shower. Recently he’s been so grouchy about absolutely everything that it’s probably a good idea not to throw my tricking in his face, especially since he hasn’t said anything about the baby yet.

All in all it hasn’t been a bad day. Okay, so I didn’t expect Lindsay wanting to keep the kid and I still think I could have persuaded her to get rid of it, but the idea’s starting to appeal to me. Not that I want to get involved but just in theory it’s cool. And with Melanie picking up the slack, I really have nothing to worry about. She even gave me an out where money is concerned so that when I choose a job, Lindsay and the baby won’t have to be considered.

I wonder whom they would have chosen as a father if it hadn’t happened like this. It sure as hell wouldn’t have been me. No way would Melanie have allowed that, nor would I ever have agreed.  Maybe Justin. He would make a great father.

When I come out of the shower, he’s there, emptying the dishwasher in the kitchen.

“Hey.”

He turns around and gives me a half-smile. “Hey.”

I walk over to the kitchen island, still in my towel, and watch him. He’s not very talkative tonight. Okay, so he hasn’t been very talkative for a while, but at the moment he practically ignores me, which he doesn’t often manage to do, especially when I’m only barely decent.

“Busy day at work, honey?” I ask in a facetious voice.

He straightens up from the dishwasher with some plates in his hands, but he’s not looking at me. “Can we not do this? I’m not in the mood.”

“You weren’t in the mood this morning either.”

“I’m sure you made up for it during the day. That’s why you had a shower, isn’t it? And I didn’t mean it like that.”

I walk around to his side of the island and lean against it. “So you _are_ in the mood for a fuck?”

He sighs and gets some more plates. “Sure, if you want.”

Wow, I do like a challenge, but this isn’t even that. This is half-hearted compliance for reasons unknown. It’s not as if he has to say yes whenever I ask. He just always has so far. But I’m not fucking him when I can’t be sure that he actually wants it.

He’s finished with his task and turns around to look at me, maybe wondering why I haven’t pounced on him yet. I’m torn between going off to sulk or even go out and wanting to fuck him until all he can think of is my dick. He seems remote again and he looks incredibly tired.

He’s at one end of the kitchen and I’m at the other, but neither one of us is making a move. He looks into my eyes, then slowly down my body and back up again to my eyes. I give him my most seductive look, undressing him in my mind, but I keep coming back to his eyes. He’s not tired – or not _just_ tired – he’s upset. I knew this whole situation would freak him out. Why does he always worry about things that only concern me, especially when I don’t even worry about them?

“Come here,” I say finally.

Justin moves closer in slow, measured steps and comes to a halt in front of me, his eyes raking over my naked chest. I know that any moment now his mind will switch off and his desire will take over. We’ve been through this before, numerous times. Whenever he has a problem with me, a fuck always seems to distract him well enough. Sometimes it even gets him talking.

I widen my stance a little and pull him closer by his shirt until he’s standing between my legs, our cocks already reacting to each other from being pressed together through the towel and his pants. I bend down a little and wait for him to meet me halfway for a kiss, which he returns with closed eyes. His arms come up around my torso and I can feel him getting harder.

After pulling his shirt off, I push his pants and underwear down far enough for him to wriggle out of them, but he remains passive. I can work with that. I slither down his body into a squatting position, leaving wet trails here and there with my tongue. It makes him shiver and twist to try and bring his cock to my mouth. Ignoring it only makes him try harder. I help him out of the rest of his clothes and my towel comes off as I straighten up.

For a while, we just kiss with our naked bodies rubbing against each other, but eventually I twist us around so that he’s between me and the worktop and I turn his back to me, running my tongue down his spine to his ass and back up, finishing with a bite on his shoulder, just where it joins his neck. My cock is bumping against his ass urgently now and I spread him a bit to run it teasingly up and down his crack.

He stills. “Condom,” he says then and something in his voice makes me stop. It’s surprising that his tone even penetrates into my thoughts, which are full of _fuck him now, right now._

“What?”

“Put on a condom. They’re in the drawer.”

Now that’s plain insulting. “I know where the fucking condoms are. Did you think I wasn’t gonna use one?”

I can see his whole body sag as if he’s deflating. I bet something else is deflating, too, because mine is – rapidly.

“You didn’t with Lindsay.”

“What? Of course, I did. I always use condoms. With everyone. I’m not an idiot.”

He turns around to look at me. “You said you can’t remember anything. And she’s pregnant. Do the math, Brian.”

“I don’t remember much, but I do remember a condom. Fuck, Justin, do you really think I’d do that?”

“How would you even know, when you’re that drunk and drugged out?”

“Because it’s important. I’ve never fucked anyone without a condom. That includes Lindsay.” Okay, so maybe I remember more of that night than I’m letting on. That’s because I don’t want to remember it, I don’t want to think about it or talk about it. I just want to forget it ever happened. And most of all, I want Justin to forget it ever happened.

“Are you sure?”

“You know what, Justin? Fuck you!”

I move away from him and stalk over to the bedroom. I can’t believe he’s accusing me of being that stupid or careless. Why would he think that? There are many fucks that I can’t remember, but I know – _know_ – that I’ve used a condom for every single one of them. Because that part of the proceedings is important and the actual fuck is only important while it happens.

It takes a while for him to follow me, carrying his clothes and my towel. I’m sitting on the bed, stubbing out the cigarette I’ve just finished. Without looking at me, he drops the stuff in his arms into the hamper and then comes to sit next to me on the bed.

“So how did it happen?” he asks.

I shrug. “They’re not one hundred percent effective, are they?”

He’s quiet for a while and I know there’s something still bothering him. If he doesn’t come out with it soon, I’m going out because this silent treatment is getting boring.

“I thought you did it without a condom,” he says then, still looking at the floor by his feet.

“I’m not that stupid.”

“But you’re not always in control, are you?”

“I’m always that much in control.”

He nods, but I know he’s unconvinced. I hate it when he’s like this, so quiet and withdrawn. So I lie back on the bed and I pull him with me, kissing and touching him in all the right places. He’s beautifully responsive. It’s even more of a turn-on when he’s semi-reluctant like he is today. It doesn’t take long for him to start writhing under my hands.

“Do you dream of me fucking you raw?”

His eyes snap open and he looks at me as if I just caught him out. Bingo.

“You want me to come in your tight little ass?”

He smiles a little half-smile. “Eventually, I wanna be the one, yes. If I ever get to do that, I want it to be you and me.”

Jeez, he’s such a lesbian sometimes. I hand him a condom and tell him to put it on me. Then I turn him over and push into him. Finally. It’s been too long since the last time and there has been entirely too much talk beforehand. But I know that he’s still stuck in his own little world.

I thrust once or twice and then I pause because I want him to really hear me when I say this. “I would never fuck anybody without a condom. I’d never do that to you. I want you safe. And I want you around for a long time.”

I shiver when Justin sighs out my name.

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

**PART  SIX**

Brian can melt my heart with one sentence or a single word or even just a look. Of course, you have to read between the lines with him. He would never say or do anything overtly romantic. For him it’s all about appearances. I get that he doesn’t like to show his feelings because he had them rejected too many times in his life. I know how it works. For Brian a rejection is worse than it would be for me. Every single one reinforces his fears.

That’s the reason I let him get away with so much. He seems so incredibly fragile under all that projected confidence. I don’t expect flowers or romantic dinners or words of endearment. I’ve had those in the past and none of that meant anything. And occasionally he throws me a line that just bowls me over.

Promising to use condoms when he fucks other people is really not romantic per se. But coupled with wanting me safe and around for a long time, it’s enough to reduce me to a quivering mess. I know that he has feelings for me, he wouldn’t have stuck around for all this time if he didn’t. And I know that this is his way of saying it. For him this is the only acceptable way because caring for my well-being doesn’t necessarily imply love. He would want all his friends to be safe, too. And he didn’t say that he wanted me around for himself, just around. Plausible deniability.

But it’s the way he says it. He knows I will hear ‘I love you’ and he wants me to. Even if he would deny it to his dying breath, it is there. But it’s the fact that I can’t respond that makes this so hard. If I turned around and said that I loved him, he would laugh at me and say, ‘Who said anything about love? I just don’t want you to get sick. It’s such a turn-off.’ Or words to that effect. I know this because that’s the way he’s reacted on the few occasions when I expressed my feelings for him.

Rejection might hurt him worse than me but it’s still no picnic for me either. Sometimes I think that just being allowed to express my own feelings without being ridiculed would be enough for me. But as it is, I turn my face into the pillow to stop myself from saying anything in return and to stop the tears that are burning behind my eyelids. I’m bursting with a love for him that I can’t find an outlet for and with a great longing that I always feel when his love for me is so apparent. We could be great together if he would only allow it. All I can do is sigh his name.

Afterwards I lie with my head resting on his chest. His hand is splayed against the side of my face and my neck and his thumb is rubbing gently against my cheekbone. I can’t make up my mind whether he doesn’t realize he’s doing it or if he’s well aware that he’s caressing me because Brian rarely does anything without intention. But, naturally, I can’t ask him if I don’t want him to stop immediately and never do it again.

I want more. Brian may be a bottomless pit where you can pour in any amount of love without any discernible effect, but I’m not so very different. Over time I have gone from appreciating and being exhilarated by any little token of affection from Brian to filing them away as yet another bit of proof that he is withholding his feelings from me, feelings that are rightfully mine. After four years, I’ve earned them, or rather, I’ve earned that he should trust me with them.

“Did you speak to Lindsay?”

“Yep.”

“And?”

“Don’t worry. I sorted it out.”

I lift up and prop my head on my hand so I can look at him. “How exactly do you sort out a baby? Did you persuade her to have an abortion?”

“Nope.”

“Brian.”

He sighs as if having to tell me is the biggest chore imaginable. “I told her I won’t be playing happy families with her and that she should get back with Melanie.”

“ _Back_ with Melanie?” That sounds ominous, as does the idea that Brian telling Lindsay to do this, is all it takes.

“The bitch threw her out. So I went to see her and all I have to do is sign over my parental rights and, hey presto, we have one big, happy muncher family.”

“Your parental rights?” I watch him light a cigarette and move back a few inches so that I don’t inhale so much smoke. “Brian, if you do that, you’ll have no say in the baby’s upbringing. No rights at all. It’s like giving it up for adoption. They can stop you from ever seeing it.”

“I know.”

“What if you change your mind later? What if the child wants to see you and they won’t let it? What if they suddenly decide to up sticks and move to, I don’t know, Canada, for example?”

He frowns at me. “What if my aunt had balls? She’d be my uncle.”

“Every child needs a father, Brian.”

“And some are better off without the one they’ve got.”

“That may be true, but you’re not one of those fathers.”

He stubs out his barely smoked cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table and swings his legs out of the bed. “Yeah, I’m a great dad and I’m teaching the kid a valuable lesson: don’t rely on your old man. Now I’m going out. You can come with me or stay here. Your decision.”

I watch him disappear into the bathroom and hear the shower come on. I don’t know whom I’m more annoyed with, Lindsay and Melanie for pushing Brian into a situation he cannot possibly comprehend in all its ramifications or with Brian for not giving this more consideration. But maybe I’m just expecting too much from all of them. It’s only been a day since we all found out, although I dare say that Lindsay’s known for longer.

None of the decisions that have been made are final yet. There’s still time to make everyone see sense. Maybe I can make Melanie understand that cutting Brian out of the baby’s life permanently is not a good option. And Brian needs to realize that how he feels now can change over time and that he shouldn’t make any irrevocable decisions on the spur of the moment.

But is it really my place to worry about this? How much does this even involve me? I’m not sure if any of them would grant me the right to interfere. On the other hand, I have a more objective view. Lindsay is blinded by her feelings for Brian and so is Melanie, only hers are the complete opposite. And Brian is just freaking out because he’s never fucked up quite this badly before and it’s not something that will go away if he ignores it. Maybe I really am the only one thinking straight.

For now, I get up and join Brian in the shower.

 

The next day I’m in luck. I’ve gone to Debbie’s after work to cook the dinner and I’m joined by Melanie after three hours. Michael is out with Brian and Debbie and Vic have gone upstairs to pack because it’s only two more days until they are going on their European trip. I’m still amazed that they’re actually going, but I must admit that it seems to have given Vic a boost. He’s been up more and for longer over the last few days.

“Have you patched things up with Lindsay?”

We’re sitting at the table, drinking tea. Melanie looks tired, but I suppose we all do at the moment.

“Yeah. I felt really silly moving her stuff out one night and bringing it all back the next, I can tell you.”

“Still, if it’s what you want, it’s worth it, isn’t it?” I pause, wondering how receptive she’s to reason just now, but I don’t want to miss this opportunity to speak with her alone. “I hear Brian went to see you as well.”

She just snorts a laugh at the memory of it. I can well imagine how much fun that must have been for both of them.

“I know you probably think it’s none of my business, but you can’t cut Brian out of his own child’s life, Mel.”

“Hey, that wasn’t my idea. _He_ came to _me._ And you should‘ve seen him when I told him that he won’t have to pay. He jumped at the chance.”

“He’s a bit freaked out at the moment. He might change his mind at some stage. It’s not fair that he won’t be able to see his kid if he wants to.”

She takes a deep breath, obviously trying to keep her temper and succeeding. “He can see the baby, just not at my house. How would you feel if Lindsay gave the child to you and Brian, and then came round to the loft every night to play mommy and daddy with Brian?”

“Brian won’t do that.”

“No, he won’t. Because he doesn’t care. It’s not as if I’m taking something from him that he wants. But **_I_** do. A child can only have two legal parents and I want it to be Lindsay and me. I’m a lawyer, Justin, I know how it works. If the child gets sick and has to go to hospital, I want to have the right to see it and make decisions, which I wouldn’t have if I don’t have that piece of paper.”

“But this way, Brian won’t have the right to see it.”

“And who do you think the child needs more? The parents he or she grows up with or the guy who turns up every once in a while, when the mood strikes him?”

There’s a pause while we both try not to let this escalate. I have to admit that I can see her point.

“One of my friends died a couple of years back,” she carries on quietly. “Her son’s father sued for custody. Her partner had to hand their son over to a man who’s only seen his child twice in three years and she hasn’t seen him since. I don’t ever want to get into that situation.”

“Brian would never do that!”

“Do you really expect me to rely on the good will of Brian Kinney, of all people?”

“He would never do anything that’s not in the interest of the child.”

She opens her mouth for what I’m expecting to be a sharp retort, then closes it again. After a while she says calmly, “For what it’s worth, I believe he was trying to do the right thing when he came to see me. The situation’s fucked up, but we have to make the best of it. I won’t stop him from seeing the child, but I don’t want him to come round whenever he feels like it or interfere in any way. It can only be him or me. Unsurprisingly, I would like it to be me.”

“I can understand all that. It’s just that I think that Brian would make a good dad if he was given the chance.” Or if he gave himself the chance.

“Well, quite frankly I disagree and I’m sure I’m not the only one. He’s not exactly a role model I want for my child. That’s why I wanted it to be you.”

“You realize that I wouldn’t have given you my parental rights, don’t you?”

She looks a bit surprised. Then she nods. “I’m glad we don’t have that problem then. I don’t want us to fall out over this, Justin. And I would ask you not to persuade Brian to change his mind.”

“I don’t think I can persuade Brian to do anything. But I have to tell you, that if he does change his mind, I’ll be on his side.” I feel sad saying it, but I’m not going to lie to her and promise her support that I’m not willing to supply. I don’t want to lose Melanie, but my first loyalty is to Brian. And while I can understand her and know that she’s in this situation through no fault of her own, I still think Brian’s making a mistake. On the other hand, I’m beginning to feel a little angry with Brian for putting me in this situation.

“In that case we can only hope that Brian doesn’t change his mind. Then there won’t be a problem. It’s admirable that you’re supporting him. He really doesn’t deserve you, you know.”

“Who doesn’t deserve him?” Debbie says, coming down the stairs with an armful of dirty washing, which she takes into the utility room.

“Brian,” Melanie says, raising her voice a little, so that it carries all the way to Debbie.

“Well, that’s a given.” Debbie comes back out of the room, sits down at the table with us and pinches my cheek a little. “Nobody deserves our Sunshine.”

I just give her a weak smile. I should be pleased that she likes me so much, but over the last two years, it’s quite often been disproportionate when compared with how she treated Brian and it grates on me. I don’t need another mother – I’m quite happy with the one I’ve got. But Brian does, and she withdrew her affections from him because she needed an outlet for her fears over Michael and chose the easiest target. She may have changed in the last few weeks, but that doesn’t mean that I can just forget it, like Brian appears to have done. Nor does it mean that she won’t change back in a heartbeat if Brian steps out of line again.

“We’re having a family dinner tomorrow,” she says. “At seven. I want everyone to be here.” She doesn’t need to add that it’s a farewell dinner for her and Vic. Only in Vic’s case, it most likely really means farewell. They’re planning to be away for two months. Quite frankly, I don’t expect to ever see Vic again after tomorrow night.

“Make sure his majesty attends as well.”

Melanie huffs a laugh and Debbie grins at me.

“I’ll ask him.” I get up and take my mug into the kitchen. I got so used to tidying this place up over the last few weeks, that it feels wrong to leave my dirty dishes on the table. I rinse it and put it into the dish washer. Then I put my jacket on and say goodbye to Mel.

Debbie insists on walking me to the door despite my protests. “Justin…” She pauses and smiles at me softly. “This whole situation’s hard on all of us. But when we’re away, you keep an eye on Brian, okay? He and Vic have always been close. I know he’ll never admit it, but he’s very upset.”

“I know, Debbie.” I give her a long hug. Her heart is in the right place. It’s just that most of the time Michael is obstructing her view. “I’ll be here tomorrow for dinner. Do you need any help?”

“Nah, Emmett’s doing most of the cooking. Just be here.”

 

I’m surprised to see my mother at the dinner table the next day, although I shouldn’t be. She has known Debbie for a lot longer than I have and therefore she knows Vic rather well, too. When she started going to PFLAG meetings, Vic was still living in Pittsburgh.

I think we’re all more or less aware how final this farewell dinner is most likely going to be where Vic is concerned. But you would never guess it from the lively conversation. It helps that Vic looks better than he did just a week or so ago. We’re all talking about what we would like to see in Italy if we were the ones going. I must admit I’ve dreamed of seeing the old masters for a long time.

Ted is talking about opera houses, Emmett about Italian men and Brian thinks the only thing worthwhile seeing are the fashion houses. He’d better get himself a very well paid job next year because he has very expensive tastes. The conversation meanders along in good spirits and it’s not half as morbid as I feared.

After we have finished dinner and dessert, Melanie taps her glass a little for attention.

“Lindsay and I have an announcement to make. We wanted you to know before you leave.” She smiles at Debbie and Vic. “We’re going to have a baby sooner rather than later. Lindsay’s pregnant.”

There is a short stunned silence, then Ted grins at her. “Lesbian power all the way, eh? You go, Baby.”

Everybody laughs, except the four of us, who barely manage a smile. “Well, no. Not quite. We have Brian to thank for that.” Just like Brian, Melanie can look completely unaffected when she wants to.

Brian has assumed his usual posture, leaning back in his chair with one arm draped over the back of mine. He endures the stares of the others in stoic silence, his eyes focused on his beer bottle as if it holds some deep secret. Nobody seems to quite know what to say. Finally, he looks up and answers the question that everybody’s thinking but nobody’s voicing. “Lindsay and I fucked. So what?”

Jeez, is that really the best he can do? On the other hand, putting it politely or not clarifying it, wouldn’t change the facts. With the whole group being so obsessed with sex all the time, there’s no way the question wouldn’t be asked eventually. So at least it’s out of the way. There’s another silence, while everybody is trying to work out the exact circumstances, I assume, and Lindsay’s looking decidedly sick. Then the congratulations come and Debbie and Vic get up to give both Mel and Lindsay a hug. Vic squeezes Brian’s shoulder a little on the way back to his seat.

“Do you have any names yet?” Emmett asks, more than a little excited. “I like Judy for a girl and Keanu for a boy.”

“Well, Lindsay likes Louise and Gus. And I like Abraham and Renee.”

“ _Abraham_?” Hunter splutters. “The kid wouldn’t survive five minutes out on the streets.”

“Or a day in school,” I add because none of us wants to think about what Hunter means by ‘out on the street’.

“Gus is a nice butch name,” Brian says emphatically, grinning at Mel.

“Gus was Justin’s teddy bear’s name,” Mom says, smiling fondly at me.

I forgot about that. I wonder what happened to him. He’s probably stacked away in Mom’s attic. I can feel Brian’s hand pull a strand of my hair mockingly.

“Great,” Melanie says in mock jubilation, rolling her eyes. I think we all know that, if Lindsay wants to call the kid Gus or Louise, she’ll get her own way. Especially with Brian’s endorsement because that will make her even more determined.

“So, you’re going to be a daddy, Brian,” Ted says in very amused voice. “Who would have thunk?”

Brian just shrugs and then his eyes – and mine – are drawn to Michael as he gets up rather abruptly and goes out the back door.

“What’s up his ass?” Debbie wonders aloud.

A moment later Brian gets up and follows him out of the house without a word. There’s a small pause before Mom asks Lindsay if she’s had any morning sickness yet. Everything is a little awkward tonight, as if the situation with Vic wasn’t bad enough. But I can understand that Mel and Lindsay wanted Debbie to know about the baby before she leaves. By the time she gets back, Lindsay will already be showing and Debbie would give them hell for not telling her.

Brian comes back in not ten minutes later and briefly puts his hand on Ben’s shoulder before he sits back down next to me. Ben gets up without a word to find Michael outside. Ben and Brian always astonish me. I wouldn’t say there are friends exactly, but they seem to have an unspoken arrangement about Michael, where they hand his care backwards and forwards between the two of them when he needs it. Because, God knows, Michael mustn’t be upset.

With Ben and Michael out of the way, Hunter switches his seat to the one next to Brian and suggests they should go to Babylon together. The kid is really annoying, but I’m glad he’s here tonight because ever since Vic got home, Hunter has refused to come over. But maybe it’s not so bad now that Vic has improved a bit.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Brian asks in a bored tone. It amuses me that Brian treats Hunter like he’s a little kid when he’s maybe a whole six years older than said kid.

“I’m young and virile.” Hunter eyes me with disdain. “Maybe the geezer needs early nights. I can stay up all night.”

Brian looks at him with a frown. Great, this is just what I need, someone reminding Brian how much older I am. Then Brian looks at me without bothering to answer Hunter. “I’m going.”

Brian can’t do things the normal way. He can’t just say, “Are you ready to go?” because that would imply that he wants me to go with him. I’m lucky that he’s even telling me because he has been known to simply put on his jacket and leave with a short goodbye.

I can see Mom smile a sour smile. And it’s for the sake of her and everyone else in our life that I wish Brian would get a clue about us being a couple. I may be able to read between the lines, but no one else can. I’m tired of looking like a little puppy following Brian around at the slightest command.

Our goodbye takes a little longer than usual with Brian exchanging some words with Vic in  private, while I make sure that Ted’s still taking Debbie and Vic to the airport the next day. Then we’re outside and Brian lights a cigarette on the front porch.

“Is Michael all right?”

Brian blows out smoke heavily and starts walking. “He thinks this is the last time he’s going to see Vic. What do you think?”

What I think is that Michael was all right for most of the evening and then freaked out for some reason. It could have been about Vic, but I doubt it. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”

For a while he just walks on and I’m beginning to think that I won’t get an answer, when he suddenly says, “I told him I fucked Ben.”

That stops me in my tracks. “You fucked Ben? When?”

He stops and turns to me. “Does it matter? Are you gonna queen out on me as well?”

“It matters to _me_ , Brian.” I can’t believe that Brian fucked Ben. Actually, I can. I just can’t believe that Ben fucked him. I thought he and Michael were monogamous and I’m a little annoyed that I lost that argument. And I’m even more annoyed that there seems to be no end to Brian’s escapades. Is it too much to ask that he doesn’t fuck people I have to get on with in my daily life?

“It was before he met any of you. It was just a fuck in an alley. Christ. Has everyone turned into a lesbian?”

“We’re not lesbians, Brian. Just human.”

I know I have no right to be angry about something that happened before Brian even met me, and I’m not, but I’m tired of getting into awkward situations with our friends because of him. I brush past him, glad that we always walk to Debbie’s in case both of us want to drink. This way I can walk out my frustration before we get home. But I needn’t have worried because Brian doesn’t follow me anyway.

 

*******

 

My life’s really fucked up at the moment. The only aspect that isn’t causing me problems is college. I’m still top of all my classes and I intend to keep it that way. I will get the best job next year. Well, I have to now. If Melanie and Lindsay change their minds, I will have to pay for the kid. And even if not, I want to at least be in a position to help out just in case, whether it’s needed or welcome or not. My kid shouldn’t want for anything.

Lindsay is still giving me the cold shoulder. No great surprise there, with Melanie having her back in her clutches. I kind of miss her. She was always making sure that I don’t oversleep, and that my room is tidy and that I eat enough. She laughs at all my jokes and is so deliciously scandalized by the things I do and say. It was fun hanging out with her, but when I saw her in class this morning, she barely acknowledged me.

So, of course, no one’s given me the heads up about the announcement the munchers are planning to make at Vic’s farewell dinner. I have to wonder if it’s wise to tell the family about the baby tonight, but it works out in my favor after all. Because Lindsay is as involved in this mess as I am, nobody wants to say anything nasty and ruin the evening. Lindsay isn’t known for taking kindly to criticism. So, other than glares from all the women, there are no repercussions.

Then Michael leaves the table and I know him well enough to know that he’s queening out over something. I think I’d better sort it out so that it doesn’t spoil Vic’s last evening at home. I know that everybody thinks he’s not going to come back from Italy, and that may well be true, but I have to believe that there’s a chance. Vic’s a fighter and he hasn’t given up quite yet.

Michael is standing away from the back door, almost hidden in the shadow of the shed. This is not a good sign. I light a cigarette and amble over to him. He has his arms folded and isn’t looking at me. I wonder what I did this time.

“Food not agreeing with you?”

“Fuck off, Brian.”

“Ah, company not agreeing with you then.”

He turns to me and glares. “Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, my life’s one big barrel of laughs.” I frown, because I’m really not getting it. Is this about Vic? Then why is he pissed at me?

“Just fuck off and leave me alone.”

“Okay.” I walk slowly back towards the house, counting in my head. Three… two… one…

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

I stop and turn back to him. “I can always help myself, Mikey, I just choose not to bother. What’s this about?”

“You fuck anyone.”

“I think that was firmly established years ag…”

“Even women. What, you’re bi now? Run out of decent tricks to fuck?”

He’s pissed about Lindsay? What the fuck has that got to do with him? Maybe he’s angry that I didn’t tell him? I move closer and decide to play this straight. “What’s bothering you, Mikey? Because I fail to see how this has anything to do with you.”

“Of course, because I’m not important enough. You fuck all of Liberty Avenue and everyone at college and even women now, but you couldn’t do it for me?”

_That’s_ what’s bothering him? I thought he got over that years ago.

“Well, that just makes you special, doesn’t it?”

“Special? I’m not special. Justin’s special. Who’s next, Brian? Ted? Emmett? I swear to you if you ever fuck Ben…”

“Mikey, there aren’t enough drugs in the world to make me go anywhere near Theodore.”

“But Emmett and Ben you would consider? Jesus, Brian, you really have no shame.” He looks at me as if he’s expecting me to make this all better somehow. He always does. But what’s done is done. He has no idea how much I wish I could change the past in this instance. Justin’s right. This is on a whole different level.

“Just stay away from Ben,” he says finally and turns to look away from me again.

I stare at roughly the same spot and carry on smoking. “Okay.” I can feel his eyes back on me and look at him, returning his stare without much of an expression.

“You already did,” he says in a whisper. Then his voice gets louder. “You fucked Ben. I don’t believe this. Is there nothing you won’t stoop to? Can’t I have something good in my life that belongs to just me?”

“It was before he met you, Mikey.” I would never have told him, but I won’t lie to him either. “It had nothing to do with you.”

“And in three years, neither one of you felt like telling me?”

“No, we didn’t. Because neither one of us ever thinks about it. It was _unimportant_. At least to us it was. And it should be to you, too.”

“You don’t get to tell me what’s important in my life. I value my relationships. The ones with my friends and especially the one with Ben. You ruin everything.”

“Mikey…” I step a little closer, but he withdraws, bumping into the shed a little in his effort to stop me from touching him.

“Don’t you ‘Mikey’ me. Fuck off! I don’t want to see you anymore. Go on. Go.”

He sounds like he actually means it this time. That’s never happened before. I raise my hands in a gesture of defeat. “Fine. Queen out. Break up with Ben. Fuck up your life over a fuck. A fuck that happened _four years_ ago.” I walk backwards towards the house, while he stares into space again, clenching his jaw. “Just ask yourself this, Mikey: are you jealous of me? … Or are you jealous of him?”

He doesn’t look at me, then he shakes his head. “Arrogant prick.”

When I turn and walk back into the house, I realize that Michael might never speak to me again. We’ve had bad patches in the past but that was before he met Ben. Now he no longer needs me. On the other hand, Ben will have one hell of a time trying to patch this up. That wasn’t my intention, but we all reap what we sow. It was his decision to bend over for me in the alley. I didn’t force him. Even though I’m pretty sure that he will get a terrible reception, I put my hand on Ben’s shoulder as I walk past to indicate that Michael needs him. Ben and I are a tag team where Michael is concerned and it’s his turn.

And then I have to put up with Hunter’s advances and that really does it for me. I just want to go home, but I know that Justin will most likely want to stay, so I just tell him I’m going. He can make his own decisions. Usually he comes with me and I would like that, but I don’t put any pressure on him. I hate all those subtle expectations that couples have of each other and the sacrifices they are forcing themselves to make. That’s why I avoid relationships. I want Justin to come with me because he wants to, not because he thinks he should.

Vic pulls me to one side when I say goodbye to him. I knew I couldn’t escape that. He asks me what happened with Lindsay and if he was anybody else, I would tell him to go fuck himself. But it’s Vic and he has given me some valuable advice over the years. However, when I’ve given him the bare facts, all he says is that I should think about my decision some more.

“You take care of yourself,” he says then, putting a hand on my forearm.

“I will. You too. And take care of Debbie.”

He laughs and it’s good to hear. Sometimes he sounds just like he used to before he got sick. “Brian… you have a good thing going on there with Justin. I’d hate for you to lose that. He’s good for you.”

“Oh yes, he’s very good.”

Vic laughs and shakes his head. “I’m sure he is. But… you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Yes, I know what he means. That Justin is a great guy and I should thank my lucky stars that he has stuck around for so long. Isn’t that what they all think?

“Have a nice trip.”

He pulls me into a hug, muttering, “You stubborn son-of-a-bitch.” He feels incredibly thin and boney, but his arms are strong around me.

Then we’re finally outside and I can breathe. Dinners at Debbie’s can be a little stifling. I light a cigarette on the porch, wondering how much damage control Ben has done with Michael by now. And I try not to think about Vic.

I know even before Justin asks me that I will have to tell him about Ben. I can’t see what it has to do with him, but I realize that hearing it from someone else so soon after what happened with Lindsay would really piss him off. I wish we could just go home and fuck. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so, because he stomps off ahead of me and instead of following him, I turn right towards Babylon. The night’s still young.

 

Usually when people are upset with me, all I have to do is turn up and refuse to go away. It always works for Michael and Lindsay, and even for Debbie sometimes. But I can’t do that with Lindsay at the moment because I want her to get used to the idea that I won’t be around. Lindsay has this unfortunate habit of not letting go. It’s too risky if I don’t want to jeopardize her relationship with Melanie. How strange that splitting her and the bitch up would have been an added bonus not so long ago and now I want to avoid it at all costs.

As no one has called me yet to chew me a new one over Michael and Ben breaking up, I’m assuming that they somehow managed to patch it up. No great surprise there. Michael was just queening out over nothing after all. I’ll give him a few days, then I’ll test the waters. Of course, if Ben’s around, he might have a few choice words to say to me. But, hey, I didn’t deliberately break gay etiquette. I just didn’t lie to Michael. I’d never do that.

I never did go back to the loft last night. I couldn’t stomach yet another person giving me the cold shoulder and Justin really has no right to be pissed at me. I fucked Ben before I even met him. But I just know that he will work out that I had an ulterior motive for the fuck and then he will be upset about that.

I think he just makes excuses half the time. He’s plain jealous and just doesn’t want to admit it. So he pretends that he’s upset over Lindsay’s _feelings_ and over the baby. And now he will pretend that he’s upset that Michael’s upset, or that I fucked Ben to make sure that Michael will never want him. It seemed like a good idea at the time. How was I to know that there would come a time when I  would _want_ Michael to want him? And somehow Justin is going to know what I was thinking when I did that. He always does.

The thing with Justin is that we don’t have arguments. If he doesn’t like what I do, he should tell me and then I would most likely tell him to fuck off. But he doesn’t. He just disapproves quietly. There’s no silent treatment, no withholding sex, but I always know when I’ve fallen short of his precious standards. I just know.

He’s quiet and withdrawn and I can’t reach him. Very occasionally I can get him to say my name when I’m fucking him, in that way that he has when he’s lost in the moment. But it’s rare nowadays.  He did it the other day when I promised him that I would never fuck anyone without a condom. It’s such a turn-on for me. He knows I like him to talk during sex, but he’s so quiet at the moment that I don’t feel like saying much either.

It’s been going on for a while now. Definitely since he found out that I fucked Lindsay, but I’m almost sure it started before that. It came on gradually, so I didn’t notice it for some time. And when I did, it was too late. I can’t change it. I fuck him all the time, but it doesn’t make any difference. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy it. It’s just not enough any longer.

It was inevitable, I suppose. I have been expecting it long before now. Maybe he just feels a little crowded. I have been staying at the loft for weeks now. He might just like a little more space. He always seems pleased that I’m there, but maybe he’s just being polite. He’s his mother’s son, after all. Jennifer would never admit that she would rather see the back of me either. She doesn’t have to. It’s all there in her pronounced politeness when she speaks to me.

So I stay at the dorms for a week or so. The studying I have to do at the moment is insane anyway and with Lindsay no longer hanging out in my room all the time, I get a lot more done. In the evenings I go to Liberty Avenue for some drinks and a fuck or two. But something’s missing. I haven’t been this solitary since Justin was in the hospital after the accident.

On Monday I decide to pick Justin up from PIFA. I finish class before him, or rather before he’s finished painting in his little studio. I’m glad he decided not to paint in the loft anymore. The fumes were fucking annoying and the place feels more like a home now.

It’s rather late. I have been for a run after class, debating in my head whether I should go and see him or just go out to Woody’s and Babylon like I usually do. But there should be no reason why we can’t go out together, and I haven’t seen him for a few days. I’m sure he’s calmed down by now, has maybe even spoken to Ben and they undoubtedly have discussed how they both feel about the whole thing in minute detail, before deciding that their friendship is too precious to lose over something like that.

After I have a shower, I go to the loft to check if he’s there, but it’s obvious that he hasn’t been home yet. That usually means that he got stuck in his painting and it can be hours before he becomes unstuck again, especially since he has no reason to think I might be at the loft. But when I get to his studio, the door is locked. I’m so surprised that I rattle the handle a few times just to make sure.

Now I’m stumped. I have no idea where else he might be on a Monday night. Out with Daphne perhaps? But the woman has only gone and got herself a boyfriend and ever since then, she has been a lot less available. She’s probably fucking mostly nowadays. Come to think of it, I always got the impression she was doing that most of the time before she got a boyfriend as well.

Okay, if he’s not here, he could be at Woody’s. He does like to drink there. He tricks there as well, I’m sure, but he mainly goes there to drink and meet up with friends. He’s one of the few people who do. I should check it out. That would be even better. It won’t look like I’m looking for him then. It’s never a good idea to do the chasing. And if you do, always make sure that it doesn’t appear as if you do.

I’m just turning away to leave when I hear the lock turn and Justin’s sticking his head out the door. He looks a little flushed.

“Brian.” He sounds surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for the number nine bus. What do you think I’m doing here?”

He laughs a short, nervous laugh. “Come in.”

Looking back into the room for a moment, he pushes the door open for me to enter. I’m wondering if it’s late enough to chance a quick romp on his roomie’s work bench because his flushed appearance is already making me half-hard. But when I get into the room, I realize that I’m not the only one who has ideas like that. His roomie’s still here, leaning against his bench and cleaning one of his tools. I’m guessing that’s not the tool that needs cleaning in this instance.

I look from Justin to the guy – Jon, if I remember rightly – and  back. “Don’t let me interrupt,” I smirk.

“I’m just finishing up,“ Justin says and blushes. I haven’t seen him blush in a long time. “You remember Jon?”

“Yeah, I remember Jon.”

“Hey. How’s it going?” Jon is surprisingly friendly.

I just nod at him and watch Justin race around the room, tidying his paints and brushes. It’s obvious that he cleaned those brushes a while ago. He’s finished in record time, swinging his messenger bag over his shoulder and pulling me towards the door.

“I see you later,” he says, stopping, and looking back at Jon.

The guy nods silently. The look that he gives Justin doesn’t bode well. He’s trying to hide it, but I’ve seen that look before. On tricks who are hoping for more than a fuck, on Michael, even on Lindsay. It always means trouble. Justin’s always lecturing me on choosing my tricks more carefully, but this doesn’t seem like a smart choice to me.

We walk down the corridor and when he doesn’t say anything, I break the silence. “I thought you asked me not to fuck him.”

“I did. This is not what it looks like.”

I snort. “You weren’t fucking in there? Don’t insult my intelligence.”

“Yes. Yes, we were. But it’s not what it looks like.”

“Justin. What the fuck’s going on? It’s not as if I’m going to queen out that you’re tricking. I would have joined in if you hadn’t been in such a rush to get out of there. What’s up? You realized it was a mistake?”

“Kinda.” There’s a long pause, while he’s speed-walking down the corridor. “It’s not the only one.”

“I can imagine. If you didn’t want me to fuck him because it might complicate things for you, I’d say things just got very complicated indeed.”

“That’s not what I meant exactly.”

I think back over what he said and put that together with how flustered he has been over this and the way the guylooked at him, while I follow him out the doors and to the parking lot. “It wasn’t the first time, was it?” I ask when we get to the car.

“No.”

I’m a little stunned and so, apparently, is he because he doesn’t say anything when I light a cigarette in the car. He hates it when I smoke in the jeep. I check that he’s put his seat belt on and then I look out the window. So Justin’s got himself a fuck buddy. I always had the impression that anonymous tricking is not quite his thing. And it explains why he’s been so distant recently. He either feels guilty about fucking him or he feels more for this guy than he’s saying and feels guilty because he’s still fucking me. Or maybe he likes fucking two guys at the same time and has been worried that I find out and spoil his fun. Or maybe he’s been trying to find a way to tell me to fuck off. He’s a sentimental like that. He would find it hard to tell me after all this time.

“How long has it been going on?”

“A few days.”

I wonder. I wouldn’t have waited weeks to fuck the guy and while I can just about believe that of Justin, I can’t believe it of Jon, not with the way he looked at him.

When we get to his building, I lean against the wall in the elevator, staring at the floor. I always knew this would happen, that one day this wouldn’t be enough anymore, that I wouldn’t be enough. Sure, the sex is fantastic, but that’s not enough for Justin. He always made it quite clear that he needs more. The question is why hasn’t he told me to fuck off yet?

The answer comes to me as he unlocks the door and pulls it back. I can see his muscles ripple under his shirt with the effort – he really should get that door oiled – and it triggers a familiar response in me. I pull the door shut with one hand and grab his arm with the other. He looks a little surprised when I pull him close.

“I need a shower.”

“I like to smell you, not soap.”

“I want to shower, Brian. We have rules.”

“Oh, I see. Now the rules are in place again? So the no names, no repeats rule is suspended, but the shower after tricking rule is still on? Any other rule changes I should be aware of? How about home by three? Is that still on? Or the no tricking at the loft rule? Do I need to change the sheets while you’re in the shower?”

“Stop it!”

I take a breath, wishing that I hadn’t said anything. Some part of my mind is gleefully rubbing its hands, telling me that I’ve turned into a lesbian or, even worse, a jealous housewife. I want to stop but my anger is making me want to shout or smash a few things. And I hate that I feel this way, that he can make me feel this way. But as always, Justin can get me to do what he wants with very little effort.

“Please, stop,” he says so quietly that it probably wouldn’t have registered if I hadn’t been watching his face. His lips. I put my hands on either side of his face and rub my thumbs over his cheek bones. He’s no longer trying to get away from me, just looks at me with sadness and perhaps surprise. And then he licks his lips.

I move my hand to the back of his neck and pull him closer until our lips smash together. He seems to have forgotten about the shower because his arms come up around my neck and he’s kissing me back with fervor. This is the reason he hasn’t kicked me out yet, this right here, this desperate need that we have for each other. If I can only make him realize what he would be missing, I can maybe make him change his mind. I know he doesn’t have sex this good with anyone else.

The kiss seems to go on forever. Our tongues are stroking slick and hot against each other. There’s nothing tender about it, it’s frantic and almost brutal. I want to devour him, mark him, make him mine and he seems to feel the same way. I pull his jacket and shirt off and maneuver us onto the floor and carry on kissing him while I open his jeans. He’s as hard as a rock.

When he tries to take my clothes off, I bat his hand away. I need him naked under me, right now, and I don’t want to take my clothes off because I always feel more powerful when he’s naked while I’m still dressed. He says it makes him feel vulnerable and I need him to surrender to me just now. I’m in charge still, no matter how much he has pulled away from me already. In this I’m in control.

He sighs and lies back on the hardwood floor, breathing heavily and just waiting for me to get ready. I pause. I have a good mind to just get up and walk away, to leave him lying there full of eager anticipation. I should just walk out the door and never come back. No one cheats on Brian Kinney. No one. But I can’t. This might be my last chance to make him feel regret. When he throws me out, I want him to remember this and miss it.

I unzip my jeans and stroke on a condom. I’m so hard I’m wondering if I will even last long enough to make him appreciate this. But when I push inside him and he gives me a long moan, I know that this will be a fuck neither one of us will forget in a while.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

**PART  SEVEN**

“I never meant for it to happen.”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s true. When I saw Jon again after the first fuck, I expected it to be awkward. I’ve been in these situations before. You fuck and one or the other would like it to be more. The only place where that doesn’t happen seems to be Babylon and even there I had to tell people to fuck off once or twice.

I’m not like Brian. I can’t just fuck someone and then pretend not to know them the next day. Especially not when I see them around a lot. That just doesn’t work for me. At first, I thought it wouldn’t work with Jon either, because when I got to my studio two days after we first fucked, he was busy welding. That’s always noisy and he has that mask on to protect his eyes, but I thought it quite possible that he was deliberately ignoring me. Then he looked up, smiled, raised his hand in greeting and carried on working. And that was that. It was as if it never happened.

And then Brian told me about Ben and he never came back to the loft that night or any other night for almost a week. Jon asked me what was bugging me and I told him. He has this really calm way about him, where he listens without looking at me and then just throws out an opinion. Or not if he doesn’t have one. He doesn’t try to convince me that he’s right, just tells it as he sees it and if I don’t follow up, he just strolls away again. This time all he said was, “You can’t really blame him for something that happened before he met you.”

I like him, I mean, _really_ like him. He’s the type of guy I would go for if I wasn’t with Brian. Come to think of it, he’s a lot like Brian, quiet, a little aloof, self-sufficient. Only he’s not so cynical, more open and he makes it clear that he likes me and would like it to be more without pushing it. He’s not nearly as hot as Brian, of course, and the sex is slower and softer, like the sex I used to have before I met Brian.

So I fucked him again the day after Vic’s goodbye dinner and every day after that. It was just so easy and I kind of fell into it. Brian did his disappearing act that always makes me wonder if we’re really getting somewhere in our relationship. When he’s around, I can believe that he wants this, that he wants to be with me but when he isn’t, I have doubts.

So when Jon touched my arm during a conversation, just gently, almost accidentally – although it certainly wasn’t that – I just went with it. It was nice to be wanted and cherished by someone, who says, ‘you’re beautiful’ during a fuck, not ‘I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t sit down for a week’. Someone who asks how I’m feeling and doesn’t ridicule me when the answer is anything other than ‘horny’.

But deep down I know it isn’t right. It’s unfair to Jon even though he knows full well that I have no intention of leaving Brian. It’s unfair to Brian even if I know that he probably doesn’t care. And ultimately it doesn’t even make me feel better, on the contrary it makes me feel worse, because I’m cheating on Brian and using Jon. I really don’t like myself much at the moment.

“I was going to tell you.” It’s true. I don’t like this situation. Jon knows the score, it’s only fair that Brian does, too. Only, I’m not entirely sure what the score is.

“And take all the fun out of it?” Brian sneers at me – naturally. What else did I expect? Does he really think I get some kind of kick out of going behind his back? Would he, if the situation were reversed? We’re lying on the bed after round two and he moves onto his side, with his head propped up on his hand so he can look at me. His other hand moves over my body until he’s stroking my cock.

“So, how big is his dick?”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Since when? You love cock. You love…”

“Stop, Brian. I’m not discussing this with you. Yes, I love sex. But it’s not about that.” Which is part or maybe all of the problem.

His hand doesn’t stop and he’s watching me intently, while I find it harder and harder to concentrate on the conversation. I’m almost hard again already. No one can turn me on like Brian can. I often wonder if that is because he’s so intensely sexual or because of my feelings for him.

But some part of me doesn’t want this, wants to talk about the situation instead. When Brian came to the studio tonight, I was rattled. It wasn’t just that I didn’t expect him to turn up and was caught in the middle of a fuck – that would have been embarrassing with anyone – but I also suddenly realized what I was doing, that I was effectively two-timing him.

I knew that Brian would know straight away what Jon and I were doing. He’s not stupid, plus he always expects everyone to fuck all the time anyway, like he does. I wanted to tell him myself, but failing that, I wanted to get a reaction. And I did. He snarked about the rules and then he kissed me like he never kissed me before. I swear I was close to coming just from that kiss alone. Then he fucked me, on the floor, just by the front door. It was fast, hard and a little rough. But it was real. It was a reaction and it made me feel claimed, owned. I needed that from him.

Then we moved to the bed and did it all over again. Sex with Brian is always fantastic, nothing compares. But at the moment I really need him to show me that he’s affected by what happened in some way. No, that’s not true. He _has_ shown me, I need him to _say_ it.

“It’s different from tricking. If you did the same to me, I would be upset.”

He looks at me and he looks exactly how I would feel in his situation, hurt, disappointed, angry. For a moment it looks like he will say something, tell me that he’s upset or that he wants me to stop seeing Jon, or that I should stick to the rules – anything will do.

“Lucky I’m not you then. You do what you have to do.”

And then he kisses me, slowly at first, then more and more desperately and I realize that this is the most I will ever get from him. If I told him to leave, he would get up and go without any hesitation. But I don’t want him to leave. I want him to tell me that he wants me to himself. That’s all he has to do. But, as always, I have to make do with what he’s giving me: sex, mind-blowing, passionate, beautiful, but wordless. And I really want it to be enough.

 

Jon nods when I tell him that I can’t have sex with him any longer. “Thought so.” He pats my arm and ambles back to his work bench. Well, that was unexpected. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but I’m beginning to wonder if anybody will ever find me worth fighting for. It’s crazy. I should be happy that there‘s no ugly drama and instead I’m pondering what it means that the two guys in my life can walk away from me with not much more than a shrug.

But over the next two weeks I can see the advantage in that. Jon behaves like he did before we started fucking. He’s as friendly as he always was, doesn’t try to flirt and the only difference is that we don’t talk much about Brian any longer. Brian turns up at the loft every night at exactly three o’clock, showers and then fucks me for as long as I can keep awake. In the mornings he chats as if nothing ever happened and not once does he mention Jon.

I’m extremely busy at work as we’re nearing the opening for our emerging artist show. This is the first time I’m nervous about having my work shown. Up until now, I didn’t have any hopes or expectations. Selling art in Pittsburgh is really not very exciting. The paintings that I’ve sold so far have gone to private collectors and didn’t leave the slightest ripple in the art world. But this time there will be a critic from New York and that’s a whole different ball game.

Sidney and I decided that it will be better for me if nobody knows that I’m the gallery manager. It might give the impression that I only got my work displayed because I work here. So tonight I’m just standing around like the rest of the artists and the guests, itching to tell that waiter with the canapés to stop cruising and get on with his work. But when he catches my eye and I glare at him, he seems to get the message anyway.

Mom’s here, of course, beaming with pride and telling me that my stuff is the best in the room. I do agree, but I know she’d say that even if it wasn’t true. Daphne turns up with Steve, holding hands and looking radiantly happy. I never thought I’d see the day when Daphne falls in love. It makes me happy just to see her whisper in Steve’s ear and laugh with him. I like him, but if he ever hurts her in any way, I’m willing to bury his body where no one will ever find it. Luckily he seems just as smitten with her.

The critic from New York talked to me earlier. He seemed to be interested in my work, but I have enough experience to know that he was really more interested in my ass. He’s a real cunt, but an influential one, so I played nice. He went to look at the other work for a while and drink the free wine, but he keeps coming back to me, talking conspiratorially about the other artwork as if only he and I have a real understanding of it. Like I thought, a cunt.

Ben and Michael are here, too. Michael looks a little sullen, but he’s gracious enough about my art, if totally clueless as to what he’s even looking at. Ben has a better handle on it and we chat for a while. He has written a book – albeit with limited success – so he knows how nerve-wracking it is to have your work judged by other people. We have spoken on the phone since Vic’s dinner and neither of us have a problem with what happened with Brian. Michael, however, is a different matter. Ben told me that he keeps interrogating him about what the fuck was like. I really thought Michael was over that. Ben, on the other hand, doesn’t seem terribly surprised.

Lindsay has turned up with Melanie and she’s gushing over my paintings. I wish I could believe that she’s as sincere as she sounds. This is always the problem among artists, too much envy. But I can appreciate that she’s making an effort and we haven’t really talked much since she slept with Brian, so she may just feel a little awkward. I haven’t talked to anyone about the baby, although I’m convinced that they all talk about it enough amongst themselves. I’m just not sure if any of them know that it wasn’t planned. They probably think that Lindsay had her fondest wish realized and that Mel and I gave our tacit approval, because there was nothing we could do about it anyway. Just how anybody could believe that Brian would agree is beyond me. But they seem to sense at least that I’m not happy about it, so it doesn’t get mentioned. Small blessings.

Even Melanie and I tiptoe around each other a little. I think she’s still worried about what Brian will do in the end, but she wouldn’t discuss that with me, not after our last conversation on the subject. That’s fine by me. I just wish that Lindsay would get a clue and see what she has in Melanie. At the moment, Melanie merely looks at my paintings for a long time, then smiles and says, “You’re damn good. If you ever decide to paint something for me, feel free. I could finance my retirement with the proceeds when the time comes.”

Ted talks to me for a little while, sipping water and eating canapés. He hasn’t touched any alcohol or drugs since that druggie put him in a coma over three years ago. I’m not even entirely sure if he got laid since then. Naturally, Brian got the blame for what happened because he introduced Ted to the guy that night. Well, at least Debbie said something about it once when she was upset about Michael. As if Brian wasn’t feeling guilty enough about it already. Not that he ever talks about it, but I know. Then Ted spots Melanie and wanders over there.

Emmett was here for all of five minutes. He had some guy in tow and obviously more important things on his mind than staring at pretty pictures. I don’t mind. It was nice of him to show his support.

Jon asked me yesterday if he could have an invitation. I just laughed and told him that this is Pittsburgh and we’re lucky to get people through the door in the first place, so no, there aren’t any invitations. He looks rather handsome in his suit tonight and I’m glad he’s here. We’re friends and it’s nice to have someone to talk to who is an artist himself.

Then Brian turns up, fashionably late as always. He and Lindsay must have got closer again because he makes a beeline for her, kissing her cheek and exchanging a few unpleasantries with Melanie, by the looks of it. He just can’t leave it be, although I’m sure Melanie gives as good as she gets. She always does. Of all our friends she was the one person I never worried about getting upset over Brian, annoyed yes, but not hurt. I thought she simply didn’t care about him enough. But then, of course, he found a way.

Brian wanders over to Michael, but for once Michael doesn’t look too pleased about it. Their conversation is short and this must be the first time ever that I’ve seen Michael turn away first. He must have learned how to hold a grudge from his mother.

My heart beats a little faster when Brian turns towards me and comes over. He looks incredible in dark slacks and a white button down shirt. He could have stepped straight off the pages of a fashion magazine, complete with the deliberately mussed hair and the aloof look. But my heart would speed up no matter what he looks like. It’s Brian. Even after four years, I get excited when I see him. Every single time.

He kisses me a little too enthusiastically, but I expected that. Then he greets Jon with a short nod. “This it?” he asks, turning towards my painting.

“Yeah. What do you think?” Since I’ve started renting a studio, he doesn’t often get to see my work any longer. He used to watch me sometimes, when I painted at the loft, but nowadays he just sees it in leaps and bounds when he picks me up from PIFA.

“Why the fuck would you care what I think? It wouldn’t make it better or make you richer, if I liked it. And you have your own art critic right here.” He indicates to Jon. “It really doesn’t matter what I think, does it?”

I want to tell him that it matters to me. It always has. But I just bite my tongue and look at the floor, wishing that the night was over already. I don’t want to be here any longer. He puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer and kissing my temple. I can smell the alcohol on him.

“It’s exquisite,” he says emphatically and I know that he means it. 

I smile.

Then he looks around the room. “Now if you excuse me, I saw a waiter earlier, who looked in need of my attention. I’ll be home later, _dear_.” And then he’s off, heading straight for the guy with the canapés, who smiles and follows without hesitation at whatever suggestion Brian whispers into his ear. I will have to make sure that we never hire him again. He’s here to work, not to fuck in the bathrooms.

“He’s not, is he?” Jon asks with a disbelieving frown, following Brian and canapés-boy with his eyes until they disappear in the back.

“Yeah, he is.” I don’t know why he is so surprised. We’ve talked about Brian at length. Didn’t he believe me?

But Jon is already back to his usual laconic self. “Ah well, we make our choices and we pay our dues.”

I have no idea what he means by that, but when I look at him, he just smiles softly at me and walks away. I don’t have time to think about it either because Daphne and Steve join me almost immediately.

“Brian up to his old tricks again?” she asks and she doesn’t seem amused for once.

“Never old, Daph. Or ugly.”

“In that case, I suspect he will run out before long,” Steve says in a deadpan voice.

We all look at each other for a few moments, then burst out laughing at the same time. It’s the single most enjoyable moment of the night.

It turns out that gallery showings are not at all what I expected. I’ve always enjoyed opening nights. Usually I’m insanely busy, making sure that everything runs smoothly and fixing last minute hitches. I never realized how boring it is to stand around near your work on the off chance that someone will want to talk to you about it or, if you’re really lucky, want to buy it. There’s some interest in my stuff, more than there is for any of the others, but I can’t shift the feeling that my paintings stand out only because they’re displayed in a mediocre environment. If the other art was more remarkable, maybe no one would even look at mine. And if the other artists were hot and gay, Simon Caswell wouldn’t be so interested in me.

But I’m wrong. Very wrong. When I get to work three weeks later, Lisa, our receptionist beams at me. “Did you see it?”

“See what?”

“You’re only in _Art Forum_.” She hands me the magazine, which just came out today. My copy of it will no doubt be waiting for me in my mail box when I get home. I thumb through it with shaky hands until she says, “Page 19.” She seems incredibly excited.

And there I am, complete with a photograph of me taken on the night and two large pictures of my paintings. I’m slack-jawed as I skim-read the article, which is spread in full color over two pages. The art critic cunt really did an impressive job. Impressive in that he’s using a lot of superfluously long words to describe my work and doesn’t leave anyone in any doubt that if I ever become famous, I will have him to thank for it. Caswell makes it sound as if he and I are best buddies and I wonder if people in the business will think that we fucked. Quite frankly he couldn’t have been more complimentary if I _had_ agreed to his offer to ‘have a drink’ in his hotel room after the opening.

Everybody is really excited for me all day and I eventually get caught up in it, wanting to call everyone I ever met and tell them about it. Sidney has already trebled the prices on my paintings. A write-up in _Art Forum_ for anyone in the show would have been a great success, but he’s even more pleased because I’m so closely connected to the gallery. He’s expecting this to give his business a boost and he’s probably right. It will bring in a lot of visitors.

By the end of the day, the excitement has left me tired but happy. I’m surprised to see Brian turn up. He often picks me up from PIFA because he has the Jeep more often than not, whereas the gallery is close to the loft, so it’s rare for him to come here. But when I’ve locked up the back and walk through the gallery, switching off the lights, there he is, standing in front of my paintings.

“Hey.”

“Hey. What are doing here?”

“Admiring Sidney’s business sense.” He nods towards the new price tag.

I have to laugh. Brian takes my hand and pulls me towards the door. “Come. I’m starving.”

I want to tell him about the article, but I remember how he reacted when I asked him if he liked my paintings and I don’t want to spoil my good mood, or his. So I just follow him for a couple of blocks, listening to him talk about one of his lecturers, who has a habit of telling lengthy irrelevant anecdotes during class. Strangely enough Brian actually makes it sound funny, even though the point of the story is that it’s not.

Then he ushers me into a restaurant, where he gives his name and we’re shown to a table. We’ve been here before, usually on special occasions. Those would be when there’s something to celebrate, like exam results and such like, because this is Brian and celebrating things like anniversaries or, God help him, Valentine’s Day is out of the question. It’s a little more up-market than what we’re used to but not so much as to be stuffy. Brian orders some wine and while we’re perusing the menu, I marvel at how much he’s changed from our first meal together in Chicago. Then, he didn’t know anything about wine or food or how to order with just the right amount of confidence without coming over as an arrogant jerk. Now it seems second nature to him. He’s come a long way in some respects.

When we’ve ordered and the wine has arrived, he raises his glass to me. “To the next Andy Warhol.”

I smile. “You’ve seen the article?”

“Lindsay showed it to me in class.”

He drinks some of his wine and asks, “Is it as big a deal as she says?”

I nod. “Yeah, I suppose it is.” It’s a tremendous achievement and I’m only gradually becoming aware of it. My surprise and, quite frankly, my dislike for Caswell have so far distracted me from the enormity of it.

“So, was he a good fuck?”

I nearly choke on my wine. “Did you see him at the showing?”

“Which one was he?”

“The guy with the glasses, black hair – receding – the one Sidney was fawning over all night.”

“When the guy wasn’t drooling over you. Yeah, I saw him. So you didn’t fuck him. Wow. Your stuff must be good.”

“Must be.”

“I knew it was.” His smile is soft and he looks so… proud almost. But there’s something else there as well, that I can’t quite identify, something he’s holding back.

“Thank you.” It means a lot to me. I got used to Brian voicing an opinion about anyone and anything. Sometimes it’s amusing, sometimes annoying, but it never leaves me unaffected because no one is as important to me as he is.

For a while, we discuss the article, which he knows almost as well as I do. He must have been paying real close attention.

“So when are you leaving to conquer New York?” he asks casually.

“Uhm, I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Why not?”

“Because my life’s here. And because a single article isn’t going to make me the darling of the New York art world for more than five minutes, if that.”

“So you’re just not going to try? What about your dreams?”

“What dreams are those?”

“Becoming a famous artist in a place that actually has an art scene?”

He has no idea. Does he really not know what my dreams are? Maybe it’s difficult to comprehend for a twenty-one-year-old that I’m at a stage in my life where I’m ready to settle down, where people are more important than places or a career. I could never leave here because I could never leave Brian. I would like to be able to make a living from my art, but I want to be with Brian more. I worked out some time ago that he’s my one chance at true happiness. I just have to wait for him to get to the same point.

Of course, if I pointed any of that out to him, he would scramble for the nearest exit. I’m very much aware that he’s not anywhere near that point yet. In fact, recently he seems to have moved further away from it. He’s spending more time at college now, hanging out with the other students, going to parties, getting drunk, fucking around. Whereas over the past two years, he seemed to gradually warm to the idea of a relationship.

Brian has always had phases where he pulled away from me to live more of an unattached life and phases where he’s seeking my company and even intimacy. I don’t know what happened over the summer that made him pull away, but I’m hoping that this phase will end soon. It’s been going on for months now, disregarding the spell when he was hiding from Lindsay, and there seems to be no end in sight. Sometimes I get despondent and wonder if I’m just a convenience to him, but I’m determined to stick with him until he gets it all out of his system. He’s worth the wait.

“You’ve no idea how many people come to the gallery every week to show their portfolio to Sidney or me. And half of them have a recommendation from their professor, or some newspaper article or someone or other in the art world, who thinks they’re the next Picasso. I’m not going off to New York, where I have no job, no place to live and no connections, to become one of them. New York has enough starving artists without me.”

He is unconvinced. “Maybe. But this could be your big chance. I would be off like a shot.”

“I’m sure you would.” I smile softly because it came out a little more sarcastic than I intended. He’s young and ambitious. Of course, he would take whatever opportunity presented itself to him. And he never said that I will have any part in his plans for the future. “I like my life.”

“I d…” He stops and then changes tack. “You should be very proud regardless.”

“I am.”

At the end of the meal, he insists on paying, saying that I can’t pay for my own celebration. I feel a little uncomfortable about that because I know he doesn’t have much money this year, but he insists and I don’t want to deflate his ego. Then he comes home with me to celebrate some more in our own unique style.

 

My two paintings sell within a week or so, but other than that nothing changes.

Two weeks later Debbie and Vic return home. They have emailed Michael a few times during their trip and the news was always upbeat and, quite honestly, too good to be true. Michael insists on having a welcome home party for them. I have my doubts about that. Even though I never expected to see Vic again, the fact that he survived the last two months doesn’t mean that he will survive much longer. A party after a long flight might be too much for him to handle.

I arrive a little late because I was working at the gallery until eight. Everybody is already here and there’s food laid out on the table for people to help themselves, while Ben is setting up the projector for the slide show. Debbie squeezes me in greeting and when I see Vic, I’m surprised how well he looks. Not only does he have a suntan, but he also looks a lot less exhausted.

“Wow, Italy really agreed with you.”

He grins at me. “You should see the Italian men. But I have to admit that it’s more down to my meds agreeing with me.”

“They’ve kicked in?”

“Well, my T-cells are up. So yes, they’re kicking ass.”

I give him a spontaneous hug, which I’ve never done before. This is really the best possible news and all the more welcome for being so unexpected. We get interrupted by the lights going out for the slide show. There’s not really much room, so I move to sit on the side of the armchair Brian’s lounging in and find myself pulled into his lap within half a minute. I haven’t seen him since yesterday and we use the cover of the darkness for a make-out session as you can only have them with Brian.

I don’t see much of the slides, but I find other people’s holiday snaps boring anyway. I really hope that the others are engrossed because I can’t imagine anybody else finding it very entertaining having to watch us and my mother is here as well. Mom never says anything, but I still get embarrassed kissing in front of her. She doesn’t like Brian, never did, but sometimes I wonder if it’s less about him and more about the fact that he’s a guy. It was easy for her to accept my other boyfriends because none of them ever made it obvious what we were. Even when visiting her, we would always sit apart. Brian’s not like that. In fact, he revels in physical contact and innuendos in front of her because he doesn’t like her much either.

Debbie mutters something about how much she hates couples making out in front of her and to my surprise Brian just chuckles and carries on. After that I lose all my qualms about this because all I can think of is that he didn’t correct her when she said ‘couples’. And since he’s not jumping up to escape, I don’t have to fear him acting out because of it either.

Two months is a long time and there are a lot of slides. Not that I mind in the slightest. When the lights come on, Brian and I stop and he wriggles out from under me to go and have a smoke outside. He’s in extraordinary good spirits. I remain in the chair with my head hanging over one the arms, looking at Ted and Melanie upside down, while they’re discussing college funds. Nothing can faze me at the moment. Not even the thought of the baby and all the upheaval that might bring still. Everybody seems to be happy today. On days like this it really feels like a family.

We’re having a very pleasant evening until Brian uses a lull in the conversation to say, “I was headhunted today.”

“Isn’t that a bit early?” Ted says. “You’ve got a few months at college left to go and you haven’t done your finals yet.”

“The offer is dependent on keeping my high scores, but otherwise it’s pretty much a done deal.” He has every right to be so nonchalant about it, because he has never got anything below an A. I feel a sense of pride that people have already started taking an interest in him. I always knew he would go far.

“Who made the offer?”

“Adam Lyons himself. He came personally to offer me the job.” He looks at me and it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. I do sincerely hope that the same is true for me.

“From Kennedy & Lyons in New York?”

There are a few seconds of silence.

“So, if you get this job, you’re going to New York?” Michael then says incredulously. It’s the first time he’s spoken to Brian all evening.

I know exactly how he feels. And our conversation over dinner comes back to me, where he told me that he would be off like a shot if he had an opportunity like mine. I should have paid closer attention.

“Not if, _when_ ,” Brian says cooly.

I want to be happy for him. I want to congratulate him because Kennedy & Lyons are one of the best advertising agencies around. I want to be proud and I am. But at the same time, all I can think is that he will be leaving next summer. And, for once, I don’t care what people will make of it, I just pick up my jacket and leave.

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

**PART  EIGHT**

I’m still angry with Justin. I’m fucking livid. I never wanted any rules, never thought we needed them, but Justin insisted. And then he goes and breaks them? Yeah, my surprise over that turned to anger pretty quickly. So, I broke the rules once. There were extenuating circumstances. It’s not every day I bury my father and I was extremely out of it. Is this just him getting his own back? I can understand that, but more than once? That’s not like him. There must be more to it.

I don’t want to talk about it, I really don’t. I just want to fuck him all the time to make him forget solder-boy. But, of course, I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. So I go to the loft every night – but not before three. It wouldn’t do to appear too keen. Unfortunately, by that time I can’t tell what he’s been up to, can’t tell if he’s had a shower when he came in, and if he had one, was it because he’s been tricking – with him?

I’m not jealous. I don’t do jealousy. That’s for breeders and lesbians. We’re gay, we fuck who we want, when we want. But, still, he made those rules and I was sure he wouldn’t break them. He’s always so fucking superior, never sets a foot wrong, always looks at me as if he can’t understand what’s wrong with me when I fuck up. I should be relieved that this time he did. But somehow I’m not. Why don’t I feel smug about catching him out? Mostly I try not to think about it.

It’s not as if my life isn’t fucked up enough as it is, although for what it’s worth, Lindsay started talking to me again. I just sat down next to her in class one day and talked to her as if nothing ever happened. She gave me the silent treatment all through the lecture, but couldn’t suppress a smile when I made sarcastic remarks about the lecturer in her direction. And when I pulled her towards the cafeteria afterwards, she didn’t resist.

So, now we’re talking. Once or twice she tried to talk about the contract Mel wants me to sign. Lindsay doesn’t like it. She said it would be ‘bad for the baby’ to grow up without a father. I had to tell her in no uncertain terms that it’s non-negotiable. Melanie will make a far better parent than I have any hope to ever be. I’m not fucking that up for my kid. So in the end, I told her that we can only hang out if we don’t do any baby-talk. So far, she’s stuck to it. I wish she would get over her crush. It was never this bad before she got pregnant – must be the hormones. But it’s driving me crazy and we only see each other in class and at lunchtime now.

I haven’t heard from Michael since the dinner, which is a fucking long time. He’s never sulked this long before. Ben has told Justin that Debbie and Vic have emailed a few times and sounded very upbeat. That’s good to know. Naturally, Ben and Justin’s friendship hasn’t suffered the slightest dent from dragging my fuck with Ben out into the open. Why is it only my relationships that suffer when something goes wrong? I really don’t get it.

Justin has a couple of paintings in the new show at the gallery. I think he’s most excited about the art critic that Sidney invited from New York and I can see how that’s a big deal. Usually no one bothers with Pittsburgh. Sidney must have better connections than I’ve given him credit for. He’s such a boring geezer, but then again, art critics are the biggest bores on the planet as well.

I’m a little late, partly by design – it’s always good to make an entrance – and partly because I don’t have the car today and the bus was late. So everybody’s already there when I arrive, including Jon,  in a cozy tete-a-tete with Justin, what else? I knew it was still going on. Justin says no, but how can I be sure? They look extremely comfortable with each other. Didn’t he tell me that fucking destroys friendships? It was certainly almost true for Lindsay and me.

Lindsay greets me with a kiss and I enjoy that only because of Melanie’s sour expression as she watches us, so I let it slide. I don’t have much luck with Michael though when I try to talk to him. He gives me the short shrift and turns his back on me. He reminds me of his mother and how she treated me over the last couple of years, with that air of disappointment and disapproval. I wonder how long it will take him to get out of his snit.

I really don’t know what Michael's problem is. The fuck was before he ever met Ben. Let’s face it, with the number of guys I fucked by then, he would have to be extremely lucky to find someone I didn’t fucked. If he picked someone hot, that is. He’s welcome to the dogs. And did he really expect me to rub it in his face? Surely, that would have been worse. So I didn’t tell him. I should have thought he wouldn’t want me to. And I wouldn’t have done that night either, if he hadn’t asked me outright.

It’s not as if I ever told anyone, not even Justin. Ben and I never talked about it either, so we didn’t sit there making fun of Michael behind his back. Surely he must know that. Even if he can believe that of me, at least he can be certain that Ben never would. Ben is besotted with him. I see him sling his arm around Michael's shoulders when Michael returns to their little group of Stepford fags and give me a small, almost apologetic smile over his head. Why the fuck do I get all the blame and Ben gets off scot-free? By definition, it takes two people to fuck – at least.

I suppose, I have to go and see Justin. He’s the reason I’m here after all. But I don’t really want to, not when he’s with solder-boy. And now I’m wondering if _they_ are laughing at me behind _my_ back. Are they making fun of the brat when they’re alone in their studio – fucking? Justin asked me to come here tonight. He’s usually sincere in everything he does. If he asked me to come, it’s because he wants me to be here. Everything else is just paranoia. Only, that would be so much easier to believe if he didn’t bring his… whatever he is.

I take a look at Justin’s painting and it’s… beautiful. There’s something about his art that always has me in awe. Sometimes, when he whips out his sketchpad and draws something in the space of a few minutes just so that he won’t forget the image, I watch him and I watch his progress on the page and I get lost in it. He has such talent and he’s so dismissive of that talent, never quite content with the result. If I could, I would buy him his own gallery. Because no one deserves it more.

When he asks me if I like his paintings, I want to tell him. I have told him before what I think about his art, but right now I can’t. Undoubtedly, Jon has already given him his expert opinion and he doesn’t really need to hear it from me. But when he looks dissatisfied with my answer, I pull him closer and tell him quietly how exquisite it is. His smile is beaming and it makes my stomach flutter. It always does. I have to be so fucking careful not to let it get to me all the time.

Ah well, I won’t stand here and compete with solder-boy for his attention. I don’t have to. There are enough guys who are competing for mine. If he wants to spend time with Jon, let him. There was that waiter who was cruising me when I came in. But I make sure to tell Justin that I’ll be at the loft later on. I don’t want to get there and have a nasty surprise. And for now, I’m still the one who sleeps there.

 

A few weeks after the showing, I slip into my seat next to Lindsay in class one morning. She has a magazine spread on her knees under the table and is leafing through it. A quick look confirms that it’s nothing that would interest me and I amuse myself with checking out the guys in the room. I can safely say that I’ve had all the desirable ones. To find fresh meat at college I have to go to parties nowadays, which I do frequently. Nobody throws parties like trust fund kids.

“Oh my God.”

I look at Lindsay and she thrusts the magazine into my lap. _Art Forum_? Really? Why would I be interested in that? But when I look at the page, I recognize Justin at first glance. I do a double-take and start reading, becoming so engrossed that I don’t hear old Levinson come in. It doesn’t matter anyway because he doesn’t care if anyone’s paying attention or not, as long as it’s quiet enough so he can hear himself drone on.

The guy who wrote the article seems to know Justin rather well or at least he’s pretending to. I wonder if Justin fucked him. He told me before that he had quite a few offers – from men and women – at the gallery to persuade him to display their work. Of course, Justin would never do such a thing, nor would he fuck for a good review. I still remember the discussion we had about ‘trading’ when we started out. But the subject hasn’t come up recently, so maybe he’s changed his mind in the meantime or maybe he made an exception for a once in a lifetime opportunity? I would.

The guy certainly writes as if he got well paid for it and nobody does anything for free. _Painterliness_?  Is that even a word? It’s not that I don’t agree with him on the subject, but do people really read this shit? I see Lindsay lap it up every month. On the day it comes out, she waits until the mail is delivered so she can read it in class. Justin is less keen. He usually has it lying about for a while before he gets round to reading it. For him it’s more professional interest.

And then I get to the last line. _New York is waiting to be conquered._ Oh shit. I hadn’t thought of that.  Much as I think the praise is deserved and long overdue, I didn’t think it through properly. So he may be moving to New York. I wouldn’t blame him if he did. But… _but what, Kinney_? I can hear Lindsay whispering to me about what a unique opportunity this is and how Justin _must_ go to New York now. And I can hear Levinson talk, but it’s all just so much white noise to me.

Eventually the interminable lecture is over. I only realize it when I see everyone gathering their stuff and getting up, so I grab my bag and leave the room. Lindsay asks me if I’m coming to lunch with her, but I’m really not hungry. What I really want is go to the baths. Only, there’s that marketing tutorial at two, which I can’t miss, so there isn’t enough time. I’ll have just enough time for a quick run.

The tutorial is boring but compulsory. The tutor – “Dr. Bergman, call me Tom” – calls me over after class is finished. I drag my feet making my way over to his desk, where he waits until everyone has left the room before he smiles at me. It makes my skin crawl. I know he wants to fuck me, but luckily he hasn’t made a move on me so far. I was really hoping to get through my last year without having to tell him to fuck off. He’s way too old for me, but I’m worried that my grades will miraculously slip if I turn him down. Appeals are always so time-consuming.

“Brian, I’d like your permission to show your coursework to some outside parties.”

“What sort of outside parties?”

“Advertising agencies, recruiters, etc. I always have people asking me if I have some promising talent in my classes. You have a lot of talent. If you give me permission, I can show them some proof. Some of your projects have been extraordinary.”

“Sure, why not? Go right ahead.” I pause and smirk a little. “You’ve no idea how talented I really am.”

To my surprise, he blushes at my flirtation. I thought he would jump at it – not that I’m offering any more than just that, but it’s a good way to keep him motivated to further my chances. “I’m sure you are,” he says, looking at anything but me. “I’ll let you know, when someone shows an interest.”

“Thank you, Tom.” I flash him another smile and saunter out of the room.

The rest of the afternoon, I work on a project I have due next week, before I shower and get changed to go and meet Justin. We have a ritual – after four years you could almost call it a tradition – that whenever I do well at college, he takes me out to dinner. Usually it’s after the exam results come out. We go to this nice restaurant that we both like and afterwards we go to the loft and he performs whatever sexual favor I request. Not that I can’t usually get him to do what I want anyway, but this is different. This is more like role play, where he submits completely. It’s always really hot and usually I spend dinner full of anticipation.

So I take him to ‘our’ restaurant, but I can’t really concentrate on the food or the sexual tension. According to Lindsay, getting a write-up in _Art Forum_ is like winning the lottery, complete with a subsequent windfall. It’s a great accomplishment and I’m proud of him, but at the same time I need to know what changes this might bring. I just like to be prepared.

Justin has a different take on it. He does seem pleased, but that’s all. It always surprises me how different he is from me. If someone offered me even the slightest chance to get out of Pittsburgh, I would grab it with both hands. His reaction? “I like my life.” I have a retort for that on my tongue, one that makes it very clear how much that sentiment differs from how I feel, but then I look at him smiling at me so softly and just tell him that he should be proud nonetheless.

I pay for the meal, even though the expense will leave me struggling until the end of the month, but it’s a celebration for him, so I can’t let him pay. And when we get home, it’s surprisingly hot to submit to him for a change. He makes me undress him and then watches me strip with that hot stare that he has when he’s turned on. It’s always fun to put on a show for him.

Then he tells me to lie on my back and puts my hands above my head, telling me to leave them there. We’ve tried putting me in restraints before, but it makes me uneasy and he likes me to touch him anyway, so at some point it always becomes inconvenient to have to untie me. I have better control than he has anyway, so I usually manage to keep my hands where he tells me to without being tied up.

“I want you to tell me what you want,” he says raspily, after kissing me for a long time. “I want you to ask for it. Beg.”

I smirk at him because he’s just put me in charge again. I can do this. So I tell him where I want his hands and his mouth and just add a please at the end. Easy. Only, when he gets closer to my cock, he starts teasing me in earnest by delaying until I’m really begging. The little shit. My hands are cramped around the edge of the mattress from the strain of keeping them there. I want to touch him desperately. I always want to touch him.

I groan when he lets my cock slip from his mouth after what feels like barely a few seconds. I’m seriously begging now because I’m damn close to breaking role and grabbing him. But he just grins at me.

“You want me to ride you?”

“Fuck, yes… _please_...”

He puts a condom on my straining cock and I have to grit my teeth when he takes his time applying the lube. I’m not going to embarrass myself by coming from just him touching me. Finally – fuck, yes! – he positions himself over my cock and starts sinking down. But I can play this game just as well. I know what he really wants. He wants what I usually make him do.

“Please.” There’s a surprising amount of pleading in my voice without trying very hard. Well, it’s not as if I don’t agree with the basic sentiment. “I want you to ride me. I want to be inside you. I want you. Just you. Always you. _Please_.”

His eyes widen and I can see him come undone right in front of me. I just love that I can do that to him. If we weren’t so far gone, the both of us, he would say something really soppy right now. As it is, he just moves faster on top of me without ever losing eye contact and finally gasps, “Touch me.” I grab one of his hips and put my other hand on his cock. I’m not going to tell him how close I was to doing that anyway. He doesn’t need to know how much effort it is to keep control when he looks at me like that.

When he collapses on top of me, after we’ve both come, he whispers, “Just you.” Maybe I should tell him that it was just part of the game, but I’m too satiated and too content right now. It’s his day after all, and he knows me too well anyway. I don’t need to tell him anything. And it was worth it, just for the way he looked at me. He hasn’t looked at me like that for a long while.

 

I have to hear from Justin that Debbie and Vic are coming home because Michael is still not talking to me. It’s been weeks now and it’s really weird without him. I’ve been seeing less of him over the last two or three years because he works at the Big Q now and I’m at college, but we still always managed to get together at least twice a week and talked every day on the phone. I miss it, but I tried to talk to him at the gallery and there’s no way in hell I’m doing it again.

On the day of the coming home party, Tom Bergman asks me to come to his office for three o’clock. I wonder if he’s finally going to try his luck after our last conversation – maybe I did lay it on a bit thick – but when I get there, he’s not alone. I look at the other guy, who’s younger than Bergman, around mid-thirties maybe, and quite hot in a designer clothes sort of way.

“Ah, Brian,” Bergman says. “There you are. I want you to meet Adam Lyons, from Kennedy & Lyons, New York.”

I thought he looked vaguely familiar, although a lot of people do. It’s inevitable with the amount of forgettable tricks I’ve had. But he’s not one of those. I remember him from the Clio Awards, where he bored us with endless talk and unfunny jokes. He comes over and shakes my hand, holding it a little longer than strictly necessary. Well, that gives me some idea what he’s after in general.

“Can I use your office for an hour?” he asks Bergman, who hesitates before agreeing and leaving the room.

I look Lyons up and down. He’s older but not out of my age range yet, good body, nice package, but unless he has a lot to say, I think an hour’s a little excessive. I smirk at him. “What can I do for you, Mr. Lyons?”

“Please, call me Adam.”

“Okay, what can I do for you, Adam?”

“I‘ve been keeping an eye on you for the last three years. You and Justin caused quite a stir at the awards. Even without pissing off all the homophobes. Are you still with Justin?”

“You want to talk about Justin?” I smirk again, because I know he doesn’t, but I’ll be damned if I talk about Justin with him as a conversation starter. Justin can’t stand him.

“No, I want to talk about you. Like I said, we’ve been keeping an eye on you. Luckily, Tom’s a good friend of mine. He’s been singing your praises from the start. I had a look at your coursework today and your projects and grades. You’re very talented.”

“I know.”

He laughs. “No false modesty. I like it. We would like you to consider working for us when you graduate.”

I wait and try to keep my excitement under control.

“One of our executives is retiring next year. We’re going to have a re-shuffle and there will be a position for a junior executive. The pay’s three times what any of the Pittsburgh agencies offer. We’ll give you a relocation package and help you find accommodation. You’ll have your own office and secretary. The career structure’s good. You can be a senior in five years. And you’ll be working directly with me.”

He says that last bit as if that will be the major benefit of the job. I ignore it. New York. Working for one of the major agencies… _in New York._ I take a deep breath. One thing I’ve learned in life is that when things appear too good to be true, they usually are. “And the conditions?”

“Minor. It’s contingent on you keeping your grades up. You slip and the deal’s off. We only take the best. You’ll have to come for an interview with the senior partners in the new year. You sign a five year contract, which is dependent on your performance and can be terminated by us without notice at any time. And you help us snatch the Brown Athletics account from Vanguard.”

Ah yes, I thought it wasn’t all about my winning charm. “What if we don’t manage to do that?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. I know you can do it. Especially if Justin helps out.”

I stare at him, annoyed despite my excitement. “I can’t speak for Justin.” Although I could probably convince him to do this for me. I just don’t want it to be part of any deal. Especially not without asking him. “If you want his services, you’ll have to ask him.” And probably get turned down, because Justin has no interest in advertising any longer and he doesn’t like Lyons.

“Okay, we leave Justin out of it. We’ll approach him separately if we want him to work for us.”

I know what he’s thinking. If I work for them, he’s expecting it to be easy for me to persuade Justin. I have my doubts on that score, but I’m not going to tell him that. I want this. This is all I ever wanted. I’m not going to mess it up. And if push comes to shove, I’ll be able to devise a campaign for Brown that won’t need Justin anyway. I see him look at me and I nod. “Okay.”

He laughs again. “Okay? That’s all you have to say?”

I shrug. “What more is there?” I’m not going to let on how keen I am.

He grins and holds out his hand. I shake it and he doesn’t let go, licking his lips and looking down my body. “Do you wanna seal the deal?”

Why not? I’m sure Bergman is expecting one of us to end up bending over his desk. Well, it’s not going to be me.

 

It’s extraordinary. I get everything I ever wanted handed to me on a platter. I didn’t even have to make much of an effort. New York. Wow. And as an added bonus I‘ll end up there with Justin – because I don’t believe for one minute that he really doesn’t want to go. Why wouldn’t he? I can’t wait to tell him.

Some days are just perfect. I get the job offer of my dreams – and a fuck and a blowjob – in the afternoon and in the evening, when I get to Debbie's, I’m greeted by Vic, grinning broadly and looking fit and healthy. I knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight and I give him a hug. Even Michael giving me the cold shoulder can’t dampen my mood. When Justin turns up a little late, I pull him into my lap and kiss him. And then there’s really no reason to stop because it’s dark and the slides are boring as shit.

I wait until the excitement over Debbie and Vic being back has died down a bit before I make my announcement. I watch Justin, because his reaction is the only one I’m interested in. And it’s not what I expected. He smiles at me, but it’s subdued and then he just puts on his jacket and leaves.

The room is silent for a few moments with everyone staring at me as if I’ve committed a major crime. What the fuck just happened?

“That’s quite an achievement, Brian. Congratulations,” Ben says quietly and, as always, he sounds sincere.

The others join in half-heartedly and finally Vic puts his hand on my shoulder. “You should go and talk to Justin.”

“I don’t go after people.”

Michael gets up and goes out the back, closely followed by Ben, who obviously _does_ go after people. Then Jennifer Taylor gets her coat and says goodbye to everyone, saying that she wants to see what Justin’s doing. _Good luck with that, Mother Taylor._ He’s probably gone straight to Jon to tell him the news.

“Boy, you really know how to clear a room,” Ted says and I can’t work out if he’s amused or annoyed. It’s really hard to tell with him sometimes.

“Well, _I’m_ happy for you.” Melanie has a broad grin on her face.

Yeah, I bet she’s happy to see the back of me. She’s probably not the only one, although Lindsay looks close to tears. I get up and get my jacket before she can start on me. “Well, it’s been great fun, but I’ve gotta go. Things to see, people to do and all that.”

I take a deep breath and light a cigarette on the front porch. Great. That went well. Why was everybody so excited for Justin when he got an opportunity and no one’s happy for me? I thought at least Justin would be pleased. But maybe he just realized that getting rid of me is not as easy as he thought. Maybe he’s had enough of me and was looking forward to going to New York on his own. Or with Jon. If that’s what he wants, he can have it. All he has to do is tell me. That’s all he ever had to do.

If Justin doesn’t want to celebrate my good fortune with me, so be it. I decide to take a trip to the baths.

 

The next time I see Justin is the evening of the next day. By that time I already know that no good fortune ever goes unpunished. As if I didn’t know that already.

I ignore the knocking on my door for a little while, too submerged in my own thoughts. Then I finally get up to answer it, because it doesn’t sound like they’re planning on going away anytime soon. Seeing Justin is no small surprise. He doesn’t usually come to my dorm room. He probably doesn’t like slumming it.

“Hey.” He smiles at me a little sheepishly.

“Hey.” I open the door wide and go back to sit on my bed, leaving him to come inside on his own.

He shuts the door and looks around for a bit, before coming over to sit next to me. I can’t help wondering what he’s doing here. Whatever it is, it makes him look very uncomfortable. Maybe he’s finally decided to come clean and give me the push. And wouldn’t that just be the icing on the cake today?

“I’ve come to apologize.” He’s leaning his elbows on his knees and looking at the space between his feet. “When you told us about your job offer, I reacted badly. I’m sorry about that.”

“Sorry’s bullshit. You know that.”

“Actually, I don’t believe that. But I know that you do. So, bearing that in mind, will you let me apologize? Please?” He looks at me now and his eyes are always so fucking earnest, it’s impossible not to be affected.

I shrug.

“I was surprised, Brian. And all I could think of was that you’ll be going to New York next year. But that’s my problem. Getting a job at Kennedy & Lyons is amazing. I’m very proud of you. And so should you be. I had no right to spoil that for you by queening out.”

“You didn’t spoil it for me.” I won’t let him. I won’t let anyone spoil this for me, not Justin, not Michael or Lindsay, not my own feelings.

“Of course not,” he says quietly. “I just feel bad for not congratulating you properly. So, I was wondering if you’d let me take you out for a meal. To celebrate. Belatedly. And you can tell me all about it.”

I have to tell him. Might as well do it straight away. “Great idea. Do you know any restaurants where they serve penicillin tarts with seasonal berries?”

He’s still smiling, then he frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“I have syphilis.”

“Syphilis?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. I already had my shot today. Now I just have to refrain from fucking your brains out for the next two days.”

He gets up and walks towards the window, before he turns around to look at me. “How can you be so calm about it? Syphilis can cause heart abnormalities, mental disorders, blindness and….  Did you fuck someone without a condom?”

Not that again. Didn’t we just have this discussion a little while ago? “Never. I swear. Must have been someone who sucked me off.”

He’s still staring at me. He looks completely stunned and… disgusted? It’s making me fucking nervous. He has no right to make me feel this way.

“Don’t get on your high horse, _Sunshine_. For all we know, I might have even got it from you. You’d better check back with Jon.”

“What has he got to do with it? And how the hell are you gonna tell all of your partners?”

“Yeah, had we but world enough and time.” I hadn’t planned on telling anybody but Justin. People at Babylon and the baths usually get tested regularly anyway. Or not, otherwise I wouldn’t have got it. Then something else occurs to me. “Fuck, I have to tell Lyons.” There goes my chance to go to New York. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

“You fucked Adam Lyons?”

“Sure. Why not? He offered.”

“Yeah, he would.” He rubs his forehead and he looks completely devastated. I want to go and take him into my arms, but I don’t know if he’d let me. I want to fuck him, too, but I can’t even kiss him at the moment. How am I going to fix this if I can’t do any of that?

Up until this moment all I could think of was how Justin would react. I knew he would queen out and I have been wondering if this will be the final straw. But now I can see how this can fuck up the rest of my life. Lyons won’t be too pleased. I know I couldn’t have got it of him, because the incubation period is three weeks minimum. But all that fades into insignificance when I look at Justin.

“Can you even have antibiotics with all your allergies?”

“What? Uhm, yeah, that should be fine.”

I wait and I hate the way my heart is beating so fast and hard. I wish he would say something, but he seems deep in thought.

“I have to go.” Of course, he does. He needs to get away from me and yet another fuck-up.

“That’s probably a good idea. I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for the next two days. Since you can never keep your hands off me.”

He smiles at that, just a little, but it’s there. Thank fuck. Maybe this will blow over. If he’s clean, he’ll get over it, although I don’t know what will happen if he’s got it. I watch him make his way to the door. In spite of what I said, I wish he would stay. It’s pointless to go out anywhere and I don’t particularly want to be alone. But I know that he needs time to think this over. He always withdraws when he needs to work things out. By the door, he turns and gives me another brief smile. Then he’s gone.

Forty-eight hours without sex seems like a lifetime to me. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Must have been when I was in high school before I went to Liberty Avenue for the first time. I can’t go out. Michael isn’t around and I’m staying away from Lindsay just to be on the safe side. I don’t know how susceptible pregnant women are. But my thoughts are with Justin. Well, sex with Justin mainly, but I’m also thinking that just spending time with him would have been better than this.

Adam Lyons is none too pleased when I call him just to tell him to get himself checked out. I’ve been contemplating not to say anything, but I’m not that much of a coward. And if he caught it and finds out that it was me and I didn’t tell him, it would make matters so much worse. I don’t ask him how this will affect my chances, but I can’t imagine it increasing them. When I saw him, Lyons said they would contact me by the end of January, so I’ll just have to bide my time until then.

But I can’t really think about that at the moment. When my forced celibacy is over, I make my way over to the loft. Luckily, Justin’s in. He’s standing by the window, looking out, when I arrive. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He seems friendly enough. But there’s something about him that stops me from coming any closer. Maybe it’s the way he has his arms  crossed as if to fend me off.

“I’m all clear,” I say with a smirk. “The last two days have been hell.”

“I can imagine.” There’s only a wan smile.

“So… do you wanna put me out of my misery?” I nod towards the bed.

He sighs. “Brian…” And then he stops, looking very upset.

Oh fuck, no! “Did you get tested?”

“What?  How… oh, no, I don’t have syphilis.”

I can’t even describe how relieved I am. But when I move towards him, he moves back. It’s subtle, but it’s there and it makes me stop. “Justin?”

“Brian… I… I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what anymore? Fucking?” I wonder what this is about. I should have known he wouldn’t just get checked out and then move on. Justin isn’t like that. He looks like he’s just about to cry. Geez, it was just an STD and not even my first one. It’s easily cured. And now it’s done. What more does he want me to do? Grovel? Okay, maybe I’m willing to do that a little. Syphilis is kind of gross. I was disgusted with myself there for a bit.

“I can’t do _this_ …” His hand moves between him and me a couple of times. “…anymore.”

Wait a minute. What? I’m starting to wonder what new rule he’s come up with this time. “What?”

“I’m asking you to leave, Brian. It’s over. I’m sorry.”

It doesn’t quite compute at first because it’s so unexpected. It’s over? What does he mean, it’s over?  He can’t be serious. He can’t ask me to leave. I don’t want to leave. I’ve come here to be with him. He can’t ask me to leave. Why would he do that? Because I got syphilis? It’s gone. I’m clear. I’ll be more careful from now on. But is this really the reason he’s throwing me out?

“Why? So you can be with Sean?”

“It has nothing to do with Jon. I can’t do this anymore.”

“So this is punishment?” I take a step forward, but his next sentence stops me in my tracks.

He looks at me, not blinking and his voice is cold. “Punishment? That would imply that you care.” Then his voice cracks a little when he adds, “And that can’t be true, can it? Because I’m just the guy you fuck more than once, right, Brian?”

What? _No!_ That’s not what I meant when I said that. He must know that. He always reminds me that he’s on to me. Surely he must know what I really meant. I remember that at the time he smiled at me as if he understood. He always hears more than I say. That’s the reason I don’t have to say a lot. He can’t throw that back in my face now.

“I have to go on a short business trip on Tuesday. I would be grateful if you could remove your stuff from the loft while I’m away. I should be gone three or four days.”

Oh fuck, he’s serious. And yet he looks at me as if he would rather throw himself into my arms than throw me out. But there’s that steely voice again and I know that I won’t be able to change his mind, no matter what I say. I stare at him and I can’t tear my eyes away. _Move, Kinney!_ Either go over there and kiss the hell out of him or leave before you embarrass yourself even more than you already have.

But somehow, I can’t fucking move. In the past Justin has put his foot down a few times, and each time I knew it was time for me to yield a little and accept a new rule. But this time he’s not even giving me a rule that I can follow to fix this. This time he just wants me to leave and I _can’t. fucking. move_. I’m looking at him and he’s so beautiful, despite being very pale today. I know it’s over, but something inside me refuses to accept it.

Then he closes his eyes for just a few moments and it breaks the spell. Finally I can turn around and walk to the door. In the doorway I stop for a moment. He’s looking at me again and I can’t let him see how affected I am. I won’t give anyone that satisfaction. “I hope you get what you want.” I smile a little because that’s all I can muster. Then I pull the door shut.

 

I haven’t been alone for four years, not really, not even when I was by myself. Ever since Justin came into my life, he was always there. I tell myself that it’s just habit. I got used to him. But I know it’s more than that. For one thing, it’s the sheer unexpectedness of it all. All this time, I have been waiting for this. Every time I fucked up, I wondered if he would finally have enough of me. But at the same time, I never expected it to come to this. He made promises – not explicitly because I wouldn’t let him but still – and while I tried hard to mistrust him, he somehow made me believe. I trusted him. I _trusted_ him.

Okay, so I deserve this. I deserved what he said. Would it really have been so difficult to give him a little more? The bummer is that I wanted to. Half the time when I’m out, I’m wondering what I’m doing, wasting my time with other guys when I could be with him. But I couldn’t tell Justin that. I wasn’t ready to give in just yet and now I’m glad that I didn’t. At least this way I can walk away with my head held high. Nobody will ever know.

But I feel a little lost. I got used to having Justin around. I liked having him around and he can see things so much clearer than I can. Now, nothing makes sense anymore. I tried so hard not to get fooled, but in the end I did. Like some demented lesbian, I thought he was the one person who would never let me down and would always be there. Somehow I managed to expect him to give up on me at any moment and believe that he never would at the same time. Go figure.

During the past summer, it suddenly dawned on me that this would be my last year at college, my last year of freedom and that I would start work after that and everything would change. I decided to enjoy this last year the way it’s meant to be, with no regards to anything but having fun. After that I would be ready to slow down and concentrate on my career, and Justin. I always assumed that we would just gradually add as many rules as it would take for him to be happy. I don’t want to end up like Michael and Ben, the living dead out in the suburbs, but I don’t think Justin wants that either. I’ve given him a lot already and I was willing to give him more, just not quite yet.

The thing is that he somehow convinced me that he would always be there. How pathetic is that? Of all the people in the world, I should know that love is just an illusion. But when he looks at me, I can see something there, always, even when things aren’t going well between us, there’s always that look that tells me that, no matter what happens, the feeling is there. Or so I believed. Now I know that I was just imagining it. Because when he told me it was over, he still had that look. So all this time, I have just been deluding myself. He’s just so fucking convincing.

But then again, I knew this would happen. From day one he was different. He doesn’t adore me like Michael and Lindsay, who would take any shit from me and have done in the past. With him I always knew that there was a limit, that one day I would fuck up so badly that he would say, ‘enough’. And now it’s happened. He finally saw me.

I’m angry with myself. For falling for his act, for gradually giving in after four years and starting to believe that this could be real. I knew better all along and still I fell for it. And I’m angry with him. I stuck to all his rules all this time because he made me believe that it would keep me – us – on track, that it was enough. I trusted him on that because I have no clue how this works. I only know how it _doesn’t_ work. He forgave me for what happened with Lindsay and yet he can’t get over an STD? I didn’t even break any rules this time.

So I don’t believe it for a minute. If I had given it to him, he would have been upset and angry, but even then, I would have expected him to get over it after a while. Disease is so ripe in our community, it’s almost inevitable to catch something at some point. That wouldn’t be enough for this reaction. No, I know there must be another reason.

And I don’t have to look very far for that reason either, do I? It’s right there in his studio at PIFA. It’s a guy who most likely brings him flowers and has romantic dinners. It’s having terms of endearment whispered in his ear. He knows I will never be that guy. But he will learn. It’s only a matter of time until the façade cracks, until solder-boy will turn into a lying cheat. It’s inevitable. At least, I never lied to him. He always knew what he was getting – or not getting – from me.

But it’s hard. Even though for the last three years, I have officially only lived with him during the summer breaks, it feels like I lost my home. Justin was home, more than my parents ever were, and more than Michael and Debbie. Now I’m suddenly free. I can do what I like and I only have myself to please. And it feels… like crap. Why doesn’t it make me happier? Why am I not relieved? I felt so stifled sometimes, this should be paradise. But it isn’t. All this time I have been living with this low-grade fear that he would do this one day and I hated that feeling. Sometimes I even hated him for it. But that was nothing compared to how I feel at the moment. It’s fucking _painful_. I couldn’t even bring myself to get my stuff from the loft, like he asked me to. I’m sure he’ll do the right thing and send it to me.

I want Justin to be happy. I always did. I meant it when I said that I hoped he would find what he wants. I was just hoping that what he wants is me. He always said it was me. But if solder-boy makes him happy, I will be happy for him. Yeah, I’m so full of shit.

It’s been over a week now. I spent every evening out at Woody’s, but fucking an endless string of guys feels kind of empty now. I suppose it always was, but it was different when it was just something I did for fun on the side and would be going home to Justin in the end. I long for a drawn-out session in his bed, making out, having leisurely sex instead of doing it standing up in a stall in the bathroom. No doubt I will get used to this again. It just takes time. So I drink mainly. There’s always someone willing to buy.

Then one night Michael sits down next to me at the bar. I haven’t seen him around for ages. He doesn’t go out a lot anymore and even if he did, he’s not talking to me, right? Why is he sitting here? He looks sideways at me, while I’m trying my hardest to ignore him. He told me the Brian and Mikey show is over, so this is what he wanted, isn’t it?

“Are you just gonna get drunk every night?”

“Never underestimate the power of alcohol and drugs. What the fuck are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be at home with your hubby?”

“Your boyfriend tracked me down.”

I stare at him. Justin and Michael have never been friends. Sometimes they get on well, but mostly they just tolerate each other. The only thing they have in common, apart from me, is that stupid comic book, they’ve created and have a finished edition sitting in a cupboard, collecting dust.

“I don’t have a boyfriend. I never had a boyfriend.”

“He said you miss me.”

“Yeah, well he’s a pathological liar and I will have to pun…” Fuck, I can’t punish him for anything anymore, can I? And suddenly I’m assailed by images of Justin that I have tried so hard to suppress. I order another drink.

“He loves you. He wanted to make sure you’re not alone.”

“I’m not alone. See all these guys around here? Anyone of them would be happy to keep me company.”

“I’m sure.” He smiles at me like he used to and I don’t want to be so insanely grateful to Justin for somehow fixing this for me. Knowing that he was – and apparently still is – always there for me somehow it only adds fuel to how raw I’m feeling. I don’t want to think about Justin at all. Or ask questions about him. Because I don’t care. It’s over. Finished. Done and dusted. But I’m also very drunk.

“So, he tracked you down when he came back from his business trip?” I know he didn’t go on a business trip. He hasn’t had one of those since he left Vangard. Gallery managers don’t go on business trips. So I know he went somewhere else, probably with someone else.

Michael looks at me for a long time and it’s making me uncharacteristically uneasy. “Justin didn’t go on a business trip.”

Hah! I knew it! And you can always rely on Mikey to spill the beans. “Where did he go? The white party?” We had plans to go together. Well, I wanted to go and he didn’t really want to. I thought it wasn’t his thing, but maybe he just didn’t want to go with me.

“Well, there were lots of people all in white.”

Come to think of it, it’s not the right time of year for the white party. “What the fuck are you talking about, Mikey?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you? Justin had surgery last Wednesday. He has cancer, Brian.”

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

**PART  NINE**

I am thirty-three. To say that being told that I have cancer is a bit of a shock is an understatement. Well, Susanna doesn’t actually say that it’s cancer, she just tells me I have lump on my right testicle. I’ve gone to my regular doctor, rather than the clinic, because my check-up was long overdue anyway. With all my allergies, I’m used to having regular blood tests even more frequently than ordinary gay men.

Susanna is a friend of Daphne’s. They met in medical school and shared an apartment for a while. She’s been my doctor for years, which is the only reason I got an appointment on the same day. I was a little embarrassed when I had to tell her about the syphilis. It’s such a cliché. But as it turns out, the syphilis is not the problem.

“You have a lump here. How long have you had that?”

“I never noticed it.” I put my hand on my scrotum and after a bit of prodding, I can feel it. It’s small, but unmistakably there.

After that I don’t hear anything for a while. I get dressed on autopilot. All I can think of is that I have cancer and that I might die. Eventually I become aware that Susanna has stopped talking. She’s just sitting behind her desk, waiting for me to catch up. When she can be sure that I’m paying attention again, she starts telling me everything all over again. That they have to do a biopsy, that it may well turn out to be benign, that my chances are good – 95% – and that they will have to remove my testicle.

“Are you planning on telling Daphne?”

“Huh?” I haven’t thought about it yet. Oh fuck, I’ll have to tell people. Daphne – yes. Mom – oh God, she’s going to freak. Brian – doesn’t even bear thinking about. “Yes, I’ll definitely tell Daphne.”

“Good. If you could do that as soon as possible, maybe she can help you. Gordon Cooper is the best local surgeon in this field. I can probably get you in with him within a fortnight, but he’s a good friend of Steve’s and maybe Steve can do better than a fortnight. Unless you want to go to John Hopkins in Baltimore.”

No, I definitely want to have the surgery in Pittsburgh. I don’t want to have to do this alone. I want someone there to hold my hand all the way through – and I want it to be Brian. And somewhere in there, I am silently thanking my mother for insisting that I’ve had health insurance all my life. She even paid for it for the longest time.

When I get to Daphne’s office, she is just about to have lunch. So, we end up sitting on her couch, where her patients usually sit, and she spends about ten minutes hugging me and reassuring me that this is probably nothing and will all turn out all right, before she springs into action. While she’s calling Steve, I sit there, thinking that even if it all turns out to be harmless, I will still end up with a ball missing. I shouldn’t feel so embarrassed about that. They can put in a prosthesis, but still, I will be damaged goods from now on.

Daphne has to work in the afternoon and I have classes at PIFA, which I attend to pass the time, rather than sit at home and brood. But I can’t switch off my thoughts. I may die. I may be one of the five percent who don’t make it. How could I have been so careless and not examined myself regularly? I just never think about it. And now I may die and there’s so much I still want to do. At my age it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that I’d have more time.

Susanna calls me on my cell during the afternoon and tells me that my blood tests came back negative. Well, that’s something at least. My histamine levels are fine, too. There’s just that little problem with the cancer, pardon me, with the _undiagnosed lump._

In the evening – Daphne and I are just having pizza – I get a call from Dr Cooper’s office to tell me that I’m scheduled for surgery first thing on Wednesday morning and that I should report to the clinic on Tuesday afternoon for the preparations. The guy assures me that it’s just a ‘minor procedure’ and shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to decide my fate and to change my life forever either way. Minor indeed.

Daphne has come straight from work to spend the evening with me. We talk about the procedure, about my chances, about practical matters, like who’s going to drive me to the hospital on Tuesday, for which, naturally, she volunteers. Then she asks me if I’ve told Brian yet.

“I’m not going to.”

“What? Why not? You can hardly hide it from him, Justin. There’ll be a scar. He sees you naked enough times. I think he’ll notice.”

“I’m going to break up with him.”

“This is not because of the syphilis, is it?”

“No.”

“Justin. I think Brian can handle a little scar.”

“It’s more than that. It’s having a ball missing. You have no idea how important cocks and balls are to a gay man. It’s never going to be the same again. I can’t ask that of him.”

“Why don’t you let him decide that? Give him some credit?”

That’s the point when I finally burst into tears. All that has happened and all that is going to happen comes crashing down on me and I can’t stop. Daphne scoots closer and hugs me tight, promising, “Everything’s gonna be fine,” over and over again. And as much as I’m grateful for that and need it, I would much rather it was Brian, not making any promises at all.

 

The thing is that life goes on. When I drive to my mother’s condo the next day, I see people in the street and envy them their carefree lives. It seems inconceivable to me that only yesterday my biggest problem was that I may have a venereal disease. What a difference a day makes.

I tell Mom mainly because she has a right to know. I wish I didn’t have to but I feel I must. She starts crying almost immediately but pulls herself together when I try to comfort her. Then she wants to do all sorts of things for me from being my chauffeur to cooking my meals after surgery. I tell her that I would prefer Daphne to do that, pretending that it’s because Daphne is in the medical profession. But she and I know that it’s more about having someone around who doesn’t fuss.

Over the last few years my relationship with my mother has become a little difficult. Her low opinion of Brian puts a constant strain on all my dealings with her, only neither one of us wants to admit that there’s something amiss. I can’t shake the feeling that her disapproval of him is also a disapproval of me, of my choices and my lifestyle as a whole.

Afterwards, I sit at home for three hours, wondering what to tell Brian. I could tell him the truth. I know that Daphne is right. Brian isn’t with me just for the sex. It may feel like that sometimes, but he can get that anywhere. There’s more to us than that. And I have a high enough opinion of him to believe that he wouldn’t just abandon me.

But Brian is only twenty-one. I don’t want him to be tied to me because of this. If I’m unlucky and get sick and die, then I don’t want him to have to witness that. He’s so fragile emotionally that I’d hate to think what it would do to him. And if I’m lucky and recover, it’s still uncertain whether my sex life will be the same afterwards. I mean, I’m going to lose a testicle, it’s bound to have some kind of impact. Sex may not be all there is between us, but it does play a big part in our relationship. It’s important to both of us. I don’t want Brian to have to tell me that he can’t do this anymore. I don’t want him to feel guilty.

These are all true and valid reasons, but what it really comes down to is that I have simply run out of time. I’ve always been very patient, but this is my second brush with death and even if I’m lucky again, maybe I should take this as a warning that my time is not unlimited.

I’ve been waiting for Brian for four years, waiting for him to grow up, to slow down, to give me some sign that he wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him. I thought I had the time to wait for him but maybe I don’t. He gives no indication that he will be ready any time soon. And he has as good as said that he will be going to New York next year if he gets the chance. Then what? I will wait for him to return? How much longer? I simply can’t do it anymore. It’s too painful to be with someone who doesn’t naturally allocate me a place in his future. That at least is a must. Otherwise, what would be the point? After four years I have to face the fact that he may never be ready. And I have no more time to wait.

Brian can take me to incredible heights and I don’t mean sex, or not just sex. Just being with him makes me happy, even if we’re doing really mundane stuff like cooking or watching TV. And he _has_ started to show more consideration. He has stopped tricking in front of me completely, although he makes no secret of the fact that he tricks all the time. He no longer dodges my gestures of affection although he still ridicules anything verbal. He spends long stretches of time practically living with me although I can’t work out why he has moved away from that since college started up again after the summer.

But he can also throw me into deepest despair. What it comes down to is that the uncertainty is killing me. I never know what mood he’s going to be in. Is he going to be sweet or belligerent? I never even know where he is and whether he’s planning on turning up at any given time and I can’t ask him for fear of making him feel cornered. I can’t even go to his dorm room without feeling that I’m invading his privacy. After all this time I still don’t know how he feels about us. And despite loving him completely and utterly, I live in fear of getting hurt all the time. Or maybe it’s because I love him so much.

Four years ago when I nearly died, I changed my life around because I realized that life’s too short to spend it in worry and fear and wasting it on things that aren’t right for me. Today my life has completely changed and yet it hasn’t. I’m still worried and a little scared half the time. This life is no longer right for me. I can pretend as much as I like that I’m doing this for him, to spare him, but when the chips are down, I’m doing this for me. I no longer have the luxury to put his needs before my own. 

But making a decision and carrying it through are two completely different things. I worry about him, I always have. I know how brittle he really is under that tough shell and I can’t help wondering what this will do to him. He will just think that he was right all along, that everybody leaves, that love doesn’t exist or that he simply isn’t lovable. He’s wrong but nothing will ever convince him of that. I’m aware that I probably had the best chance of getting through to him out of anybody and I wish I could be stronger. He will never know how sad that makes me.

When he turns up at night, he just saunters into the loft as if nothing ever happened. As if there is no baby, no syphilis from fucking around all the time, no plans to leave next year. It should make me angry, but it just fills me with sadness. And I’m kind of relieved because I know, he will go on and maybe even be happy doing it. I will be just a momentary blip on his radar. But I will no longer have a part in his life, one way or another. That thought gives me such a crushing pain in my chest that I need to hug myself tight and take deep breaths to steady myself.

For once he seems to sense that there’s something wrong. No, that’s unfair. He often knows me better than anyone. It’s just that he tends to deliberately ignore it. Of course, he jumps to the obvious conclusion and he looks so incredibly relieved that he hasn’t infected me that for one insane moment I think that having syphilis might have been worse than the reality. I have to step back when he comes forward so that he won’t touch me. I couldn’t bear that right now. My resolve would just crumble.

“Brian… I… I can’t do this anymore.” After all the time we’ve been together, it sounds so trite and clichéd, putting it like that. _Really, Taylor, this is the best you can do? Next you’re gonna spew out the old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line. He deserves better._ He willfully misunderstands at first. What did I expect? To be honest, I have no idea. Probably that he would just say ‘okay’ and walk away. He’s the one to insist that there are no locks on our door, that we’re just passing time and just having fun for as long as we both enjoy it.

But I’m wrong. He really doesn’t seem to understand what I mean. I have to be clearer. “I’m asking you to leave, Brian.” _Please, just go. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is._

He looks stunned and then he turns angry, not shouting angry or sarcastic angry – hurt angry. And he asks me if this is about Jon. Typical. As if I couldn’t possibly make a decision like this without someone in the background. As if this couldn’t possibly be about him and the way he treats me. No, to him the only possible explanation is that I want to fuck someone else instead. That just about sums us up, doesn’t it?

I suppose I should be thankful that he seems to be a little jealous after all. At least, he doesn’t care so little that my fling with Jon didn’t affect him. But his next question just makes me angry. He thinks this is punishment for getting an STD? Does he really think that I would throw out four years of being together to _make a point_? How little he must care if he thinks that it all doesn’t mean that much to me.

It’s kind of satisfying to throw his own words back at him. When he introduced me to some trick months ago as ‘the guy I fuck more than once’, I thought it was kind of romantic in some weird, twisted Brian sort of way. I knew what he really meant. Or I thought I did. But over time, the words have lost their shine and have turned into something altogether different. Now they seem like the epitome of our relationship.

He just stares at me. I want to see hurt and pain because that would mean that I haven’t wasted four years of my life, that I was right all along, that he does love me, but I really can’t tell what he’s thinking. And it’s killing me. The whole situation is killing me. I love him, plain and simple. I will probably always love him. And the thought that he doesn’t love me back is ripping me apart.

I concentrate on the practicalities, telling him when to get his stuff. I couldn’t bear to watch him do that. But, hey, luckily I will be in hospital for a few days, having my ball removed, so I won’t have to.

Brian just stands there. What is he waiting for? Why doesn’t he just go already? I’m going to cry, I know I will, and I don’t want him to see it. That would be too mortifying and he would just mock me for it. I’m not Michael, I’m not allowed to be weak. I have to close my eyes for a moment to stop the tears and finally I can hear him move.

But then I can’t not look at him. Who knows when and if I will ever see him again. I just want to look at him and memorize everything about him as if it wasn’t already seared into my brain and my heart and probably my very soul. And then he tells me that he hopes I get what I want, like he’s saying ‘good luck’ or ‘have a nice life’. He has this magnanimous smile on his face that tells me how little he cares. He can be generous and gracious because he _doesn’t care._ I sink down onto my knees, hugging myself tightly and despite what I thought just a minute ago, the tears won’t come. Some emotions are just too monumental for that.

 

The trick is to keep busy, to not think about it. I have to get leave from PIFA and the gallery. Luckily cancer excuses just about anything and Sidney and the dean’s secretary are incredibly nice and sympathetic about it all.

I tell Jon as well and he looks so stricken, I just want to comfort him. For a long while he just hugs me silently. Then he pulls back and pushes my hair out of my face, while looking into my eyes. “Let me be there for you,” he says pleadingly – and I wish it was Brian.

I know it’s wrong when I let him kiss me, but it’s comforting of sorts. When he goes to lock the studio door, I don’t object. I don’t exactly feel like having sex but the arousal comes eventually and while I’m doing this, I don’t need to think. Sometimes I can see the attraction this has for Brian.

But that’s wrong on so many level. This is nothing like what Brian does. For starters, I like Jon, so there’s nothing anonymous about this. I wouldn’t be doing this if there was, because I’m mainly looking for comfort at the moment. And I know that Jon is in love with me to some degree and this is so not fair on him. I can’t be like Brian who thinks that saying ‘I’m going to be a shit’ is enough to make it all right. Honesty doesn’t give you a free pass to do whatever you like. And last but not least I’m thinking about Brian. I’m always thinking about Brian.

Jon wants to really ‘be there’ for me, to come to the hospital and the loft after. I don’t think I have ever seen him string so many words together in one go. My news must have really rattled him and I’m already feeling sorry that I let him fuck me. What’s the poor guy to think, especially after I let it slip that I broke up with Brian? I’m really such a shit, but I’m too preoccupied to deal with it right now, so he will just have to live with the fact that Daphne has all the bases covered and I can’t make any plans for how things will go. Then I go shopping for new pajamas to take to the hospital. Just keeping busy.

But it doesn’t really work. As I go about my preparations, Brian is all I can think about. I miss him fiercely and veer helplessly between wanting him to be here to support me and being glad that I don’t have to worry about how he would feel about it if he did. If he was here, I would think constantly about how _he_ is coping. And thinking about Brian helps me not to focus on my fear so much. Pain of that magnitude seems to trump fear easily.

But there’s one thing I have to do before I go to the hospital. I should probably have done it a long time ago and I have to ask myself if I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to interfere or because it suited my own selfish purposes.

 

“Ben’s not in.”

Michael looks as if he’d like to shut the door in my face. Since he had a falling out with Brian, he has become a little hostile towards me as well. I have nothing against Michael and I’m pretty sure he has nothing against me personally, but Brian colors all our dealings with each other and rarely in a good way.

“I’ve come to see _you_ , actually.”

“Really? Why?”

“To talk. Can I come in?”

He opens the door to let me pass and when I’m inside their living room, he even offers me a drink. I accept a beer. Ben and Michael bought this house together about a year ago. I helped them move in and paint the rooms. We all did, except Brian, who professed himself to be horrified at the happy homo heaven and refused to help. Personally, I always thought it had more to do with his fear of losing Michael than actual disapproval. Looking around their home, I can’t make up my mind whether I envy them their cozy life together or whether I find it a little too hetero-normative. My main problem is that I can’t imagine what they do together or even talk about.

“It’s about Brian.”

“I don’t want to talk about Brian.”

“Then just hear me out, okay?”

He glares at me, then looks stubbornly at his beer bottle and refuses to meet my eyes. We’re sitting in armchairs almost opposite each other and he seems more like a child than he ever did. Maybe it’s the sulking that makes him appear so very young – and so very hurt. I do feel sorry for him, but at the moment I feel a lot more sorry for myself.

“Brian and I split up yesterday.”

His head shoots up and he stares at me. “For real?”

“Yeah, for real. I asked him to remove his stuff from the loft.”

“Why?”

“I had my reasons. Here’s the thing, Michael. Brian could really use a friend right now. And I know that you love him and that this whole situation’s hard for you for whatever reason, but deep down you’re still his friend. You always were and you always will be. I’m asking you to help him. Could you maybe just forget this thing and talk to him?”

“Why do I have to do it? He never tried to talk to me either. Why am I always the one to run after him? If he needs me, why doesn’t he just come out and say it? Never mind that he’ll just up and leave next year. I bet he won’t even think about any of us. So what would be the point?”

I’m not sure if that’s even true. At my showing, it looked to me like Brian was making an effort and Michael shot him down. Of course, you never know what Brian may have said. Sometimes he phrases requests like an order and apologies like an insult. Not that he really has anything to apologize for in this instance.

“The point is that he can’t say those things, Michael. You know that. You know him better than anyone.” Stroking Michael's best-friend ego always works wonders. He’s still not convinced, but he seems a lot less hostile now.

“What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything. I broke up with him for reasons that had nothing to do with him.”

“Wow. That doesn’t seem fair. What happened? Found someone better?”

“No. I didn’t find someone better. I don’t think I ever will. But this is not about me. This is about you and Brian. He didn’t sleep with Ben to hurt you and neither did Ben. It happened before any of us ever met Ben. Why can’t you get over that?”

“It’s easy for you to say,” he says quietly. “Your boyfriend fucks anything that moves and that’s normal for you. Ben doesn’t and it feels like betrayal.”

“Then why are you only blaming Brian? If anybody betrayed you, it would be Ben. And you don’t seem to have a problem with him.”

He picks at the label of his bottle for a while and doesn’t say anything. I’m already regretting getting into this discussion. It’s really none of my business.

Then he says without looking up, “You don’t understand. You have Brian.” As if that explains everything and maybe it does. I feel incredibly sorry for him. He loves Ben. I know he does. But nothing will ever compare with Brian. I can certainly relate to that. “You’re the only one who ever had Brian. You have no idea.” That may be true, but it’s a matter of careful what you wish for. Having Brian proved more than I could handle in the end. I’m torn between pity for him and pity for myself.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… this is none of my business. I’ll go.” I put the bottle on the table and make my way to the door. When I get there, he has followed me. Much as I sympathize with his dilemma, I can’t forget Brian in all of this, so I have one more try. “The thing is, Michael, if you’re worried about him going to New York, then you should fix this now, while there’s still time. You know he would never just abandon you. He could be halfway around the world and he would still always be there for you. He loves you and he misses you terribly. You know that.”

He nods a few times and just when I decide that I won’t get any more out of him and turn to leave, he says, “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.” I want to give him a hug because he looks so young and so forlorn, but he wouldn’t like it. He just about summed up our relationship when he said, ‘you have Brian’. We will never be close because of that. Well, that and the fact that we have nothing in common. But essentially Michael is very much like his mother, his heart is in the right place, he just gets a little lost sometimes. So I just put my hand on his shoulder for a moment and leave, hoping that it was enough.

 

Daphne takes me to the hospital on Tuesday and sits around waiting with me. It has advantages when you’re with somebody who knows the surgeon quite well and it’s obvious that I’m getting preferential treatment from the nurses. As hospitals go, it’s as pleasant as it can be.

The next morning Daphne is there before the surgery, which is scheduled for eight o’clock. Mom’s there, too. I couldn’t dissuade her and I don’t mind in this instance. Mom always makes me feel better when I’m not well. Although there’s something really pathetic about a man in his thirties wanting his mother to comfort him. Brian would mock me mercilessly.

But then again, Brian isn’t here. I shouldn’t think about what he would say. I should think about the operation and what will come after. I should be worried about the outcome of the biopsy. I am. Very much so. But still, the last thing I think about before I go under and the first thing when I wake up is Brian. Always Brian.

It really turns out to be a minor procedure and I’m allowed to get out of bed by the evening. I feel tired and my balls feel the size of footballs, and just about as solid, too. Painful doesn’t even begin to describe it. But there are always the industrial-strength drugs that they dish out in hospitals, and in a sense I welcome the distraction. I would take physical pain over how much I miss Brian any day.

I’m back home on Friday, still in pain and still a little tired all the time. But Daphne stays with me for the weekend and it’s not so bad. Mom turns up every day and Debbie and even Jon. Luckily, I have an excuse not to talk much and when it’s just Daph and me it is almost enjoyable. I’ve asked her not to talk about Brian, so we don’t.

I have told my mother that we broke up, so I’m assuming that Debbie knows – and of course Michael does, too, and therefore the whole family – but everybody is heeding my request to be left alone. I get the odd phone call to see how I’m doing, but otherwise the weekend passes quietly and I feel a little recovered by Monday morning.

They informed me that it was cancer and that they think they got it all. They also told me that the tough times are still ahead. I have a month of radiotherapy to look forward to, at three treatments a week. But I’m thinking how bad can it be, after they cut me open, took out my ball and stuck a piece of plastic inside me? How bad can it be compared to feeling raw and torn inside from missing Brian?

Bad. Very bad. My first treatment is on Monday. I don’t feel anything straight away and actually go into my studio to distract myself. By the early afternoon I’m back at the loft, shaking, sweating and vomiting without any sign of easing even after two hours. There’s nothing left in stomach. There hasn’t been since the first bout, but the retching and the shakes just won’t quit.

Jon drove me home and he says he’s staying until Daphne will get here after work. But he’s so awkward around me that I wish he would just leave. I don’t want anyone to see me like this and I can’t stop feeling that I should make this easier for him somehow, since he’s nice enough to look after me. But I don’t know how. And there’s really nothing I can do about the vomiting.

I just want to crawl into bed and pass out. Everything hurts inside and out. I don’t even want Daphne when she turns up. And then my mom gets here after work as well. I’m in bed by then. She keeps coming up and offering me things, a drink, something to eat, a warm water bottle. I just want to be left alone and if Mom puts her hand on my forehead to check if I have a temperature one more time, I will bite her hand off, I swear. Of course, that would probably make me barf again.

Over the course of the afternoon, I can hear the loft door open and close several times. It seems that everyone I’ve ever known feels the need to come and watch me puke. I can’t even tell who’s here anymore. There are murmured voices for a long time, way too many of them for my liking, and then they get louder for a bit, before it all dies down eventually. Good. I don’t really care any longer if they all left. In fact, I’m kind of hoping they did. As far as I’m concerned, they can all get lost, but it’s probably too much to hope that they got the message. Seems like I’m not so pathetic after all, because I really don’t even want my mom trying to comfort me. I’m tired now and if I wasn’t so cold, I think could maybe sleep for a bit. If I still have guests, I hope they stay in the living area and leave me the fuck alone. How come I feel so lost and lonely when there’s a house full of people who care about me and want to help? I don’t want any of them. I just want Brian. And isn’t that the most pathetic wish of them all?

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

**PART TEN**

When I heard that Lindsay was pregnant, I felt like my life was falling apart. I could see all my hopes and dreams disappear down the river, although I was still standing somehow. But when Michael tells me that Justin has cancer, the bottom drops out of my world. I’m in complete freefall and it just won’t stop. There’s no solid ground anywhere.

I’ve made a few dashes to the men’s room in Woody’s in my time, but never one to be violently sick in the toilet. If I wasn’t so preoccupied, I would maybe have time to feel embarrassed about that, but as it is, I couldn’t care less. Michael is there when I come out of the stall and hands me some wet paper towels, looking like he used to, all concerned and ready to help.

He wants me to come home with him, but I can’t bear the thought of Ben being all understanding and patronizing. There’s a reason why I’ve avoided all contact with the family since Justin and I went our separate ways. Nor could I bear the fact that Ben will have more information about Justin than I have. I drag Michael outside into the street. There’s no way I will discuss Justin’s business anywhere where it can be overheard.

Michael doesn’t know much, just that it’s testicular cancer and that the surgery went well. Justin is already back home and will be starting radiotherapy tomorrow. So that means that it wasn’t just a lump. They don’t give you radiotherapy just for the hell of it. He might die. Oh fuck, this can’t be happening. He might _die_. Jack did.

I ask Michael to drive me back to my dorm and when we get there, he comes to my room with me without asking. And I wish he wouldn’t. I want to be alone and after a couple of hours of barely talking, he gets the message and finally leaves. I only spare about five seconds on wondering how my behavior will affect our newly restored friendship, but the thought doesn’t stick around.

During the past week – a week and two days actually, but who’s counting – I’ve been running, drinking and fucking a lot and tried hard not to think about Justin. But in all that time, I never once thought that I may never see him again. Why would I? I knew that he would still be around, that I would see him at the diner or on Liberty Avenue eventually. Or even at Debbie's, once I’d have shored up my feelings well enough to see him there with Jon without looking affected by it.

Now I have to admit that I was looking forward to that – not seeing him with the new boyfriend, but seeing him at all. It would have been the highlight of my day, week, whatever. I thought that we would be friends maybe or at least that we could be in the same room together and be comfortable with it. I just hadn’t been sure that I could pretend I didn’t hate it just yet. But once I got to that point, I would have been happy to have him in my life in whatever capacity he was going to allow. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t be there in one form or another.

But now that’s not going to happen. Now he may die. He will no longer be in my life, or my world even. It’s unbearable to think he will no longer be around. Even if I never saw him again, it would still be comforting to know that he’s out there somewhere, living his life, being happy. He deserves to be happy. He cannot die – and there’s that freefall feeling again.

I sleep very little that night and in the morning I have to force myself to go to my lectures. They’re a colossal waste of time because I don’t hear a word anybody’s saying. I don’t see Lindsay around, which suits me just fine. I don’t particularly want to talk to anyone either.

By lunchtime I’m at a point where I know that I need more information. But who to ask? Everybody is aware by now that Justin and I broke up and I couldn’t bear their pitying looks. I have always maintained that I will just walk away when it’s over, on the few occasions when I actually admitted that there was something to walk away _from_. And what is more, I have always mocked people when they were upset about someone. How can I go and ask them for information and, no doubt, look like a pathetic fool while doing it? The only person who wouldn’t exploit that in some way, now or in the future, is Vic, but how much information is he likely to have?

I think of Daphne, but she’s fiercely loyal to Justin. Knowing that we’re no longer together, she’ll guard his privacy, something that no one in the family will value much. And Daphne is a doctor of sorts. She’ll be thinking about confidentiality and such things, even if Justin’s not her patient. No way will she tell me anything.

But I need to know. After a run and a shower and endless cigarettes in my bedroom, I finally give in. I’m so fucking scared and this is driving me insane. So all I can do is go to the one person I know will treat me right.

When I stand outside the loft door, I hesitate. Now that I don’t live here anymore, shouldn’t I be knocking? But he might be asleep and if he’s sick, I don’t want to disturb him. I just need to know the score. Actually, I need to more than just know. I need to see it for myself. Or preferably feel him, to know that he’s okay. Nothing short of touching him will be enough. That’s the real reason I didn’t go to anyone else, because words aren’t enough. I know it doesn’t mean that he will stay that way, I’m not delusional, it’s cancer for fuck’s sake, but I just need to… fuck it, I just need _him_. Just like last time, when he was injured. It’s all about me and what I need. I’m so disgusted with myself that I simply pull the door open to get it over with.

The room is full of people, which hollows my stomach. Something drastic must have happened, otherwise it wouldn’t take Debbie, Daphne und Mother Taylor to be here to fix it. And Jon, let’s not forget Jon, who’s leaning against the couch with his hands in his pockets. They’re all glaring at me, but after a moment I realize that this isn’t about me for a change. The atmosphere is thick with resentment. They were having an argument. So I wasn’t imagining it when I thought I could hear voices from outside.

“Brian,” Jennifer says. She can always be relied upon to deal with any given situation. “This is not a good time.”

“I can see that,” I manage to press out, trying to locate Justin, but he’s nowhere to be seen. “Where is he?”

“Didn’t you two split up?” Debbie asks, more confused than annoyed.

“He’s sleeping,” Daphne says at the same time.

“I doubt it.” I move further into the loft, leaving the door open. “It’s like Central Station in here.”

“My sentiments exactly.” Daphne gives the others a pointed look.

“How is he?”

“He had radiotherapy this morning. So he’s not good.”

“Daphne.” Jennifer doesn’t even need to raise her voice to make it sound like a reprimand. “I don’t think Justin would appreciate you telling all and sundry about his condition.”

That really makes me angry. She has some nerve to dismiss me like this after all this time. “I don’t think I can be classed as all and sundry after fucking him for four years.”

“Brian!” Debbie says. “Can’t you watch your fucking mouth for once?” She doesn’t even see the irony in that.

“Yes, this hardly the time or the place.” Jennifer purses her lips in that prissy way that she has when she’s dealing with me.

“This is the perfect place because this where Justin and I live and it’s the perfect time because you guys don’t seem to be able to decide on what’s best for him. Well, all your problems are over. Go home and give the poor guy some peace. I’ll look after him.”

“ _You_? I wouldn’t trust you to look after my plants,” Debbie says, but she’s already smiling a little.

“Go home and make some chicken soup, Deb. I’ll come by tomorrow and pick it up.”

She nods and looks around for her things. She’s the easy one because with Jennifer here, she would never insist on staying. She values her special place in Michael's life too much not to grant Jennifer the same right. But she’s still waiting by the door, too curious to see how this will pan out.

“You see, Brian, that’s the thing. You don’t live here anymore. And I think one boyfriend is really enough, don’t you?” Jennifer smiles at Jon, who doesn’t react because he’s not looking at anyone.

“Quite.” I don’t elaborate, but I think they all realize what I’m saying.

“Justin will want Brian here,” Daphne says firmly.

“How do you know that? He kicked him out just last week.”

“Because I know Justin. He needs Brian right now.”

“I don’t think you know him as well as I do. I’m his mother.”

“And that’s the exact reason why you don’t know him at all,” I interject. “Who do you think he tells all his darkest, deepest secrets to? You? I don’t think so. He’s not in kindergarten anymore.” I take a deliberate look at all of them. “Although it certainly feels like it at the moment.”

“We all know that Justin didn’t split up with Brian because he doesn’t love him anymore. Sorry, Jon.” Daphne shoots him an apologetic look, then turns to me. “If Brian’s willing to mop up his sick, then I think he’s the one Justin would want around.” Her smile is soft, but there’s a challenge there as well.

“Yeah, I’ll hold his hair while he pukes,” I drawl as sarcastically as I can. No way am I going to profess my undying love in front of these people.

Jon pushes himself off the couch and walks towards the door. He stops briefly when he’s next to me. “I leave you to referee the chick fight, dude. I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

“Call first.”

He hesitates a little, then nods and just walks past everyone to disappear down the stairs.

“And the same goes for all of you.”

Predictably Jennifer bristles at that, but I just walk over to the door, pull it open a little more to make a point and make an inviting gesture towards the landing. “Ladies…”

“I’ll just say goodbye to him,” Jennifer says resignedly.

“No, you won’t. I’ll tell him you said goodbye. If he’s asleep, then just let him rest.”

She glowers at me. I know she can’t stand me and the feeling is definitely mutual. She thinks I’m an uncouth brat and I think she’s a stuck-up bitch. Normally, I revel in touching Justin in front of her and making suggestive remarks because she’s so obviously uncomfortable with it. What does she think we’re doing when we’re alone? Play scrabble? I don’t think I ever had a serious conversation with her – or a conversation, period. But this time it’s not about winding her up. This times it’s about Justin feeling sick, according to Daphne, and these guys thinking that it’s a spectator sport. So my voice is steely and cold for the first time and I can glower with the best of them.

“I told you, he needs rest,” Daphne says in her best ‘I’m-a-doctor-I-know-what’s-best’ voice and either that or the fact that Daphne and Justin have been friends since childhood convinces Jennifer. With a last despairing look towards the bedroom, she joins Debbie on the landing.

“A word,” I say to Daphne and, because the other two are still within earshot, I pull her into the kitchen.

“Anything I should know?”

“The surgery went well. They think they’ve got it all. He’s going to have radiation for a month. Try and get some fluids into him.”

“Okay.”

“Brian. Make sure that he knows that just this once, he doesn’t have to be strong in front of you. He really can’t spare the energy for that at the moment.”

“He doesn’t need to do that anyway.” I never asked him to be strong. He just always is.

“He needs care. Not just feeding and watering. He needs TLC. I know it’s too much to ask that you tell him you love him but be nice to him, okay? I know your idea of being nice is a good fuck, but just be there for him. The way he needs you to be, not the way you feel comfortable with.”

Does she think I’m an idiot? “Yeah, yeah, I already told you I’ll hold his hair for him. And at least I can hold him up in the shower, which is more than any of you guys can do.”

She chuckles. “Yeah, there is that.” She pats my arm a little. “I trust you. Don’t make me look bad in front of Jennifer.”

“Yeah, that will be my single-most concern.”

She chuckles again and walks towards the door, giving a little wave just before she rounds the corner. I wait for about half a minute after I hear the door roll shut and then go and lock it securely, switching the buzzer off at the same time. After that, I switch off the ringer on the phone.

When I walk up to the bed on my bare feet, I find Justin under the covers, right up to the top of his head. I can’t say that I blame him. I can well imagine what it must have been like for him, having to listen to them argue over who gets to look after him. And these people profess to love him. Well, maybe they do, but they have no fucking clue who he is and what he needs. Okay, so maybe Daphne has an inkling.

I look down at him and register the fact that he’s still sleeping on ‘his’ side of the bed. It makes me smile until I realize that the other side may well be occupied by someone else now. Although if it was Jon, he surely would have put up more of a fight to stay here. Then I become aware that the covers are shaking. Of course, my first thought is that he’s jerking off, quickly followed by the dreadful idea that he may be crying. But if he was crying this hard, I would be able to hear him.

There’s a spare blanket in the drawer under the bed, which doesn’t do much when I spread it over him. I need to buy something thick and warm tomorrow. I go and find one of my sweatpants to get changed into and then I slip into bed behind him. It’s like an oven under the covers, but he’s still shaking and his teeth are shattering a little.

I move as close as I dare, without touching him. Whenever I feel ill, the last thing I want is someone touching me. Justin just lies there, shaking, but maybe a little less so now. I know he’s not asleep because I know how he breathes when he’s asleep.

“Move closer, I’ll warm you. I won’t touch you. Just move as close as you want.”

Justin shuffles backwards until there is less than an inch between us. I feel like I’m boiling immediately, but I just lift the covers behind me to cool my back down. Everything else I’ll just have to endure. His shaking subsides very gradually.

“You’re a hallucination, right?” he asks after a while.

“Stupid twat.” My voice is soft. Not much amusement in it, despite the familiar playful insult, but no tremble either, thank fuck. He really doesn’t need me queening out right now.

He huffs a barely-there laugh. “Now I know that you’re not. A hallucination would be nice to me.”

“I _am_ nice.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly and then after a while, sounding sleepy, “Yeah, you are.”

 

The next morning I wake up when Justin tries to creep out of bed quietly. I watch him walk and he seems steady enough, so I let him go into the bathroom in peace. I don’t much like the fact that he closes the door behind him, but decide to give him ten minutes. If he’s not out by then, I’ll check on him. In the meantime I go and put the coffee on.

When Justin comes down to the kitchen fifteen minutes later, I have already made some toast and even changed the bed. I don’t know about him, but I was sweating buckets last night. He looks a bit pale this morning and when I look at his naked torso, while he’s pulling the sweater over his head, I realize that he can’t really afford to lose any more weight.

He pushes away the coffee I made him with a disgusted expression and I realize that I won’t be having coffee in the mornings for a while, because it’s obvious that even the smell of it is revolting to him. I tip his down the sink and empty the jug from the coffee machine. Luckily I’ve already drunk mine.

“Why are you here?” he asks, tearing his dry toast into tiny little pieces and piling them up after he had no more than a quarter slice.

“To tell you what a motherfucking piece of shit you are?”

He isn’t amused by that and, quite frankly, neither am I. Now that I’ve said it, I realize how angry I am. He seems to have told everyone and his dog, but not me.

“ _Me_? Why?”

“For not telling me that you have cancer. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Maybe because I didn’t want you to know?” He just sounds incredibly tired.

“Yeah, like I was never gonna find out in this family.”

He acknowledges the truth of that with a nod and tries another tiny piece of toast. “I thought I asked you to leave.”

“You did. But when have I ever done what I’m told?”

Finally, there’s a small smile, but it’s there and gone in the blink of an eye. “Can you pass the milk?”

It’s a simple request, but I feel almost giddy with relief. It’s going to be all right. He’s not throwing me out just yet. Turning to open the fridge, I can’t stop myself from smiling a little, but when I face him to pour his drink, my face is neutral again.

“I’m too tired to discuss this right now and that’s the only reason I’m letting you stay.”

“Fair enough.”

He nods again and takes the milk over to the couch, where he settles himself into the cushion with a blanket, doing not much of anything for now. Deciding to give him some space, I go and have a shower.

I know people think Justin and I are always fucking and I admit I have perpetuated that theory whenever I can. If they ever stopped to think, they would realize how stupid that is. Of course, we fuck a lot, several times a day, in fact, if we spend our day together, but that’s not all there is. It never was. We talk, we do other stuff like watch TV, read, shop, cook, play games, all the things other people do. He even tried to teach me to draw once, but we had to give that one up as a total loss. The point is that I missed it. I missed just being with him. And yeah, I sure as fuck missed fucking him as well.

So sitting down to do the crossword in yesterday’s paper feels pretty damned great after I thought I would never get to do this again. He still seems a little sleepy, but at least he’s not puking. I don’t get much of the crossword done because I can’t stop looking at him. He seems fine today, so the situation might not be as bad as it sounded. He had the surgery. It went well. And after his treatment he will be fine. I have to believe that, because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. He’s going to be fine. He has to be.

After an hour of dozing, he sits up a little more and looks around for something. Our eyes meet and it’s the first time since I got here that he’s looking at me for more than a few seconds. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I really want to know, so I’m keeping any resentment out of my voice.

Justin lowers his eyes. “Can you see the remote anywhere?”

I get up and fetch it from the top of the TV. When I return to the couch, I lift up his feet and sit down with them in my lap. “Why?”

“Are you gonna give me the remote?”

I pass it to him. “Care to answer my question?”

“I don’t want to have to explain it.” He switches on the TV and proceeds to flick through the channels without seeming to pay much attention.

I amuse myself by massaging his feet for a while. The way he said it, he seems to think that the answer is obvious. Only it isn’t obvious to me. Did he not tell me because we were already split up when he found out and he didn’t want me to come back just because he was sick? Or – and I’m leaning towards this possibility – did he split up with me _because_ he was sick?

If that’s the case, he must really think I’m shallow. What, he thinks I’m going to leave because he has a little scar? Or because he will be a little sick for a while? Or he thought he was going to die and didn’t want me to be around for that? Or was it because he wanted someone around who was better suited to take care of him?

I’m trying to put myself in his position. How would I feel? I wouldn’t want any pity for a start, so I probably wouldn’t tell anyone. Not even Justin. Could I handle being less than perfect in front of him, letting him see the scar? I can’t even imagine how that would make me feel. I’m not such a great catch when you take away the looks and the fucking. He would leave me anyway in that case, so giving him the push would probably be what I would have done, too.

But Justin is different. There’s so much about him that isn’t physical. He must know that there’s more to him than that. Unless he thinks I’m only with him because he’s a great fuck. Or because he’s beautiful.

“I don’t mind you having a scar.”

“How magnanimous of you,” he says, without looking away from the screen.

Fuck, he’s irritable today. “I just meant… why would you think it would bother me?”

“I didn’t.”

I give up. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. Fine. I’ll just watch some mindless game show. Or some shoot-‘em-up western. Or the news. Or… jeez, I hope he stops channel hopping soon. He’s never done that before and it’s going to make me dizzy.

“They took one of my balls out.”

 _Oh_. I suppose it’s lucky that I’m looking at the screen when he says it because I’m not entirely sure what my face is showing right now. I don’t want him to take surprise for dismay. I didn’t expect that. Why didn’t I expect that? Did I think they would take his ball out, neatly scrape off all the cancer cells and put it back in? Why didn’t I read up on this before now? I should be better prepared. But all I could think of so far was how shit scared I was of losing him. And now I have no idea what to say.

Finally I turn towards him and, as expected, he’s watching me closely. “If that’s supposed to scare me away, it’s not working. What else you’ve got?”

“Five weeks of radiotherapy, with prolonged vomiting and diarrhea.”

“Lovely. I’ll buy air freshener.”

“Possibly a reduced sex drive and/or temporary impotence.”

I grin a little. “With me around? I doubt it.”

And there is the first genuine smile I’ve seen, but he becomes serious again very quickly. “A risk of recurrence in the first five years.”

That completely wipes the grin off my face. “Don’t… do that.”

“I can’t make any promises.”

I squeeze his foot a little. “I know that. But just… don’t, okay?”

“I’ll do my best.” He does that slow blink that always gets to me. I want to pounce on him and fuck him until you can’t tell where one of us ends and the other begins. It’s the best way I know to get close to him. I want to be closer, I want to crawl into him, so that I can never lose him and he can never get rid of me.

In the end, I get up and get a bottle of water from the fridge. Daphne said he should drink a lot and it’s an excuse to get up, so that when I come back, I can sit down at the other end of the couch. He leans against me and I remember this vaguely from after the accident. He’ll just need time to recover. He’s all right today. Everything will be fine. I play with his hair a little and he leaves the TV on one channel to settle against my chest. He’s here. He’s alive. Everything will be fine.

In the afternoon, I go to one of my tutorials for a couple of hours. On the way back I grab my books and more clothes from my dorm room and drive to Debbie's house to pick up the chicken soup. I also borrow a thick duvet of her. She gives me a funny look and hugs me close when I leave.

I’m struggling a little with getting the loft door open with my arms full and then I nearly drop all the stuff when I see Jon sitting on the couch with Justin, both of them laughing. Gritting my teeth, I drag everything inside and deposit the soup container on the kitchen island. Justin and his guest are just watching me without comment.

“I thought I told you to call first.”

“Yeah, you did.”

I must admit that there’s something about Jon that I like. Or I would if he wasn’t after Justin.

“It’s difficult to call if you switch off the phone,” Justin says, but there’s no heat behind it.

“It seemed like you needed some peace and quiet.”

“I did.” Justin puts his cheek against the backrest of the couch. He still seems tired and I just want Jon to leave so Justin can rest. “But I don’t need you to vet my visitors for me.”

“Okay, I won’t.” I drop my study books on the dining table, where they always are and try to ignore the wordless conversation between them. Well, this is going to be fun. But it seems that they have no intention of talking with me in the room because by the time I have dropped my bag of clothes in the bedroom and hung up my shirts, Jon is already calling out a short goodbye to me and leaves.

I really don’t get the deal with them. If they are seeing each other, wouldn’t Jon be around more and insist on looking after him? He doesn’t give the impression that he wants to be just friends. And I can’t really make any claims at the moment because officially Justin and I broke up. I’ve never been in this situation before, where I had to second guess my welcome. With Justin I was never in any doubt that he definitely wanted me around. Now I wonder if this is how he felt all the time, unsure of his standing and just hanging on by sheer determination. It’s a sickening feeling, but I’m not giving up. Walking away is not an option.

Justin eats some of Debbie's soup in the evening, more than some even and he drinks plenty and is generally more perky. His mother and Daphne turn up at different times to check that I haven’t killed the patient, but I suppose that can’t be helped for a while. Justin is happy enough about it, but he flakes suddenly at around ten and is asleep half an hour later. I climb into bed with him, but I don’t disturb him, just lie there, watching him sleep. It always calms me, knowing that he’s here, with me and safe. He was much better today, more like his old self just minus the upbeat mood – and the sex of course. He’ll be fine. I know he will.

 

O ye of too much faith! He is not fine. How could he be? He has cancer and he might die. At the moment it feels like he’s doing that right now. I took him to the hospital this morning and waited for him to finish his treatment. Afterwards we did some shopping and came home. Everything was okay until the early afternoon and then he started vomiting so severely, he couldn’t leave the bathroom for two hours. I finally half-carried him to the bed and gave him a bucket to be sick in. He wasn’t too happy about it, but he’s in no condition to put up a fight. I’m not looking forward to cleaning the bucket every half hour, but I just couldn’t watch him kneeling in front of the toilet any longer. In fact, I’m having a hard time watching him being so ill at all.

Of course, they’re all here again, one after the other, Jennifer, Daphne, Jon, even Ben turns up for five minutes. I’m surprised Debbie isn’t here, but maybe she learned something when Vic was sick. She certainly defended his privacy like a lioness then. I let Daphne speak to Justin because I know she will recognize the signs if he doesn’t want to see her and, sure enough, she comes back down from the bedroom after just a couple of minutes, gives me a silent – if sniffly – hug and leaves. By the time Jennifer turns up, I’ve learned something, too, and don’t let her do more than peek at him from the bottom of the stairs, because he’s asleep by then. Jon and Ben don’t even get past the door.

When I go to empty the bucket for the fourth time, he puts his hand on my wrist, although there’s no force behind it, just a feather-light touch. He’s looking at me, all pale and with dark circles already forming around his eyes.

“I changed my mind.” His voice is barely audible and scratchy from vomiting.

“Uhm… what about?” I am not leaving! I can’t. I have to be here, especially after seeing him like this. I just have to.

“Go ahead and vet my visitors.” He smiles a little, but it’s obviously an effort.

I smile back and stroke his sweaty bangs out of his face for just a moment. “I look forward to it.”

“Just don’t leave, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

That proves to be only half-true. Over the next few weeks, I often dream of being somewhere else, as Justin deteriorates steadily. At first he’s well on the days between treatments, but after the second week the only day he feels reasonably okay is the Sunday, when he has an extra day between sessions. And even that’s gone by week four. He languishes in bed most of the time. The loft reeks of puke, shit and lemon air fresheners. He doesn’t eat and doesn’t drink enough and needs IV drips to keep his fluid balance when he goes for his treatment.

There’s a steady stream of visitors. I coordinate with Daphne when I have to go to mandatory lectures and tutorials. She takes the pressure of me by devising a schedule, very much like the one we had for Vic. I would prefer it if people would just leave when I’m here, but that’s probably too much to hope for. There are plenty of times when I’m studying and there’s someone in the loft with us, but as long as they leave Justin alone, I just grit my teeth and bear it. I have to live with the fact that other people have claims on him – more than I have, actually. Although as time goes by and he doesn’t throw me out, I gain more and more authority through his tacit approval.

Mother Taylor wants to have him admitted to hospital, but Justin looks at me so beseechingly that I’m glad she doesn’t have power of attorney. Daphne does. And there’s an almighty argument when Jennifer finds out, which gives me an excuse to throw them both out for the day. I’m as concerned about him as Jennifer is, but I choose to listen to Daphne, who tells me that Justin may take it worse than some people, but it’s still within acceptable limits. I’m just hoping that, as a doctor, she knows what she’s talking about.

Debbie makes endless rounds of chicken soup, which is the only thing he will eat at all. But she’s just doing practical stuff, like coming in to scrub the bathroom thoroughly when he goes for his treatment and dropping off food. You gotta love her for that.

And I’m getting more and more tired. I study most of the time because it’s quiet and won’t disturb him. Some of my lecturers have given me homework so that I can keep up but don’t have to attend. I have set up the table so that I can watch him from where I’m sitting. It’s not a great idea for getting any work done because I keep finding myself just watching him for long periods of time, but I can’t shift the feeling that he might just fade away when I’m not looking.

There’s nothing I can do. That’s the worst of it. He’s so terribly ill and all I can do is sit here and watch him die. It’s like when we had the accident and I tried to stop the bleeding. He was dying then, right in front of my eyes, and he’s dying now, only this time it’s in slow motion, stretched out over weeks rather than minutes. And I’m as useless now as I was then.

I dream about him dying all the time and wake up in a cold sweat, wanting to draw him close to reassure myself that he’s still alive. But his sleep is restless enough as it is, so I just listen to him breathe. Sometimes I dream about the accident, which I haven’t done for years, and those dreams leave me disoriented, not quite sure if I’m still dreaming when I’m awake or if I dreamt the last four years. Until I realize that this is the reality now and that it may be less violent, but it is just as deadly. And then I lie awake for the rest of the night, wondering what I’ve been doing in all that time. I may have wasted the only time I had with him and on what? Nameless guys who didn’t interest me in the slightest past the obvious? I had fun, yes, but ultimately it was unimportant. 

What if there is no more time now? What if I will never have a chance to actually get to what’s important just because I couldn’t believe that it was real? I was in the exact same position four years ago, knowing what he means to me and praying for more time with him. And then I did nothing. If I had worried less about how long it would last and enjoyed it while it did, then I wouldn’t lie here, scared shitless that I might never have that now. And what is more, that I never let him have that, because I can’t pretend that I didn’t know that he was never completely happy with the way things were. He was just holding on for me. And my old motto suddenly seems like so much garbage to me. No apologies, certainly. What’s done is done. Apologies won’t change that. No regrets? Yeah, right. Right now, I have a whole shitload of them.

So yes, I often daydream of being somewhere else – Babylon, Woody’s, a beach in the sun, the fucking North Pole – but it’s always with him. Because the only place I want to be is with him, here or anywhere.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

**PART  ELEVEN**

Brian’s here. In the loft, in my bed and even though I know I shouldn’t, I’m just so incredibly grateful and relieved. I missed him. I wanted him, just him, so much so that I’m wondering if I’m imagining it. Brian wouldn’t come back to me unless I went down on bended knees and begged him – if he would even then – not after I threw him out. He’s too proud for that. But then he calls me a stupid twat and I know he’s real. Only Brian would insult me when I’m ill.

The next morning, I hate myself for letting it happen. There was a reason I asked him to leave and now that I’ve let him stay, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of leaving again. And I’m too tired to argue with him, so I’m letting it slide. Fighting with Brian takes too much out of me at the best of times. I don’t have the energy to do it when I’m feeling like this. But I know that I’m deluding myself. When I broke up with him, I knew that I would _never_ be able to do that again, under any circumstances. It tore me apart.

When he leaves for his lecture, I realize that my phone is off. There are fifteen messages, half of them from Mom and I spend an hour calling people back and reassuring them that I’m fine now. Then Jon turns up. I’m happy to see him because he’s always so calm – maybe deceptively so, but nonetheless.

“So are you and Brian back on?” he asks after a while.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. He wants to be here and I’m too tired to throw him out again.”

“But you don’t really want him here?”

I think about last night and how calming it was to have him around. But by the time he turned up yesterday, I was already over the worst of it, so it didn’t matter. That won’t be the case tomorrow or on any of my treatment days after that. I shudder to think how disgusted he will be with me. He seemed to take the prospect of what’s to come in his stride when we talked about it earlier. And I know I would want to look after him if the roles were reversed, but I can’t bear the thought of it. He will hate it. I just don’t know what to do about it.

“I’m too tired to do anything about it.”

“ _I_ could.” His voice is as calm as always. There’s no threat or malice there, just the offer to do this for me, if I really want it and don’t feel up to it.

“You make me feel like an invalid. I think I can manage.”

“Okay. Why did you break up with him in the first place?”

“Lots of things. There’s the baby and then he might be going to New York after graduation anyway. And the syphilis.”

“He has syphilis?”

“Did have. Don’t worry. I was clear.”

He nods, as if that thought never crossed his mind. “Inevitable, I suppose, you can’t spell stud without s, t, d.”

I have to laugh at that and, naturally, this is the moment that Brian chooses to come home. He is carrying a lot of stuff. Looks like he’s planning on staying. Jon seems to come to the same conclusion and looks at me with raised eyebrows, asking without words if he should throw him out for me after all. I just shake my head. I will deal with Brian on my own. I owe him that.

It’s all downhill from there. The next afternoon, after my treatment in the morning, I feel worse than I did the first time around. I seem to spend hours in the bathroom, worshipping the porcelain god. I closed the door, but it doesn’t take long for Brian to follow me in there. He keeps handing me cool, damp cloths to wipe my face and cups of water to rinse my mouth. And he’s put a folded-up towel on the floor for me to kneel on. For a while I just want him to leave. I feel terrible enough physically without being so mortified that he’s witnessing this, but soon I feel too sick to care. He wants me to go to bed, but I’m worried about soiling the sheets or that he will have to clean up whatever container I will throw up in. Do I even own anything suitable? And why do I worry about stuff like that at a moment like this?

Eventually I start feeling so weak that I wonder if I will pass out on the bathroom floor. When Brian manhandles me into bed, I just put up a token resistance and gratefully sink onto the mattress. I’m also starting to feel incredibly grateful that he’s here. There’s no one else I could bear having around me right now. I practically beg him to stay – fuck dignity and pride. I just want him and nobody else. He promises not to leave. I know it’s emotional blackmail. That’s _really_ low.

And it gets worse – a lot worse. I feel more and more sick as time goes by. Eventually there doesn’t seem to be any let-up at all. The vomiting is bad enough, but when the diarrhea kicks in, I’m thinking that if the cancer doesn’t kill me, then the treatment surely will. During my last week, I no longer just feel like I’m dying, I’m actually at a point where I think I might _want_ to.

I’ve lost track of the days and just about everything else. Most of the time, I’m may be aware of where I am or who else is there, but I really don’t care. As long as Brian’s there. He helps me to the toilet and sometimes into the shower. And he’s all I need and all I want. I feel safe when he’s around and I have forgotten any and all objections I had against having him here.

By this stage I have actually convinced myself that I’m riddled with cancer because this can’t be making me better. How can something that makes me so ill be treatment? No, I’m sure they’ve made a mistake. They may have removed my ball and the lump, but they must have missed the rest of it. Then, one day, the radiologist tells me it’s my last day. It is? I ask her if that means they’re giving up and she smiles and says it just means that I’m done with the treatment and everything is as it should be.

And, of course, nothing changes. I throw up all afternoon and all night. And the next day is only marginally better and so is the day after that. But then I wake up and it’s over. I don’t feel sick any longer, just tired. It’s amazing how the simple absence of nausea can feel like euphoria. I gingerly turn around in bed and Brian is there, looking at the ceiling but turning his head towards me, when I look at him.

“I made it.”

He nods sagely. “Yeah, you did.”

And to my great embarrassment I burst into tears. Brian reaches up to the bedside cabinet and hands me some tissues. “Stupid twat,” he says a little gruffly. Then he pulls me close to him and just strokes my hair. The idea that he saw me when I was so weak makes me want to scream. He will never forget this. And neither will I. Not the tears and not what came before.

I’m still tired a lot and the diarrhea lingers a few days longer because the radiation hit some of my bowels. It was unavoidable because of the area which was being treated. But at least I’m able to get up and sit on the couch for a few hours a day. I start drinking huge amounts of water because I feel like I haven’t drunk anything for weeks. Daphne says I’m dehydrated and it will sort itself out if I just keep drinking. I eat Debbie's chicken soup until one day I have a craving for toast and peanut butter. And coffee. Brian wordlessly does several Starbucks runs.

By Christmas time, I feel well. I will go back to work and PIFA after the holidays and everything that happened just feels like a particularly long and vivid nightmare. I get showered with presents and Vic and I toast our great achievement for the year: survival.

And Brian is still around. He spends less time at the loft, which is understandable because he was practically chained to the place for weeks on end. He must be glad it’s over. I’m sure the whole experience was his definition of hell. But he promised me in the beginning that he wouldn’t leave and so he didn’t. Brian doesn’t make many promises, but I have yet to see him break one.

Now that it’s over, he’s studying like a fiend. Mainly, it feels like we’re just coexisting. I feel awkward around him, not just because he has seen me at my lowest, but also because I didn’t prevent that when I should have done. I never wanted him to see me like that for his sake as much as mine and yet, when the time came, all I wanted was Brian and I gave no consideration to what it might do to him. I practically forced him to stay with me.

Didn’t I ask him to leave because I realized that he will never give me what I need? And then I take advantage of him like that? Now I’m stuck. I can’t ask him to leave after all that and I hate living like this. He’s so remote. He’s always studying or at college – if that’s where he really goes. We make conversation but neither of us quite knows what to say. For once he’s too polite or uncertain to tell me that now that I’m better, he will return to his old life.

I must admit that however uncomfortable it is to be around him at the moment, I count every day as a bonus. Because once he’s gone, he will be gone for good. And I’m such a coward and selfish prick. I should just thank him for everything he’s done and release him. And I will. Just a few more days. When I go back to work I will tell him. Of course, I said the same about Christmas, too. And about New Year.

We’re having a party at the loft to celebrate the end of the year and when the fireworks go off, Brian kisses me. During our first year together, I was in hospital on this day and the year after that, we were in a middle of a fuck at midnight, but for the last two years Brian has kissed me on the stroke of midnight. He’s usually drunk enough not to care or even remember how couple-ly that is. On both occasions, I thought that the alcohol helped him override his worry about his image. This time I think the alcohol helps him forget his disgust.

When he’s done – and he’s making a thorough job of it – he grins insolently at Jon and I realize he was just marking his territory. Even if he doesn’t want me anymore, that doesn’t mean that he will yield willingly to someone else. He hasn’t touched me, never mind kissed me, since I’ve been sick. Sometimes I look at him and I have such a longing for him that I just want to throw myself into his arms. But I couldn’t bear him rejecting me. Just like I can’t bring myself to ask him to leave again. I think a part of me is hoping that he will do it for me, just pack his bags and leave. I’m better now, why doesn’t he just go? But I know he’s waiting for me to release him from his promise. Soon he will start acting out again to give me an incentive. It’s inevitable. Not wanting me to die is not the same as loving me the way I love him. I should really tell him to go before I have to witness that.

Jon comes over and tells me how glad he is that I’m okay now, gives me a hug and kisses my cheek. He leaves soon afterwards and the party starts to wind down. It was quite raucous and the only ones sober were Ben, Vic and I, because we’re not allowed to drink on medical grounds, and Lindsay because of her pregnancy. She has quite a bump now. Or rather, it shows a lot because she’s so scarily thin.

“Did I see Emmett hit on Jon?” I ask, when I get into my sweatpants, ready for bed.

I hear Brian chuckle in the bathroom. “That’s nothing. Ted hit on him, too.”

“He did? I must have missed that.”

“Nah, you didn’t miss much. It wasn’t pretty.”

He comes out of the bathroom, stark naked and half-hard. I try not to stare, but he is just so beautiful and I haven’t had sex for a long time. Being around him so much doesn’t help on that score. I basically want him all the time.

He stops and looks at me and smirks. I try to look away, but my eyes keep coming back to him. Eventually he steps up close to me and puts a finger under my chin to turn it up. His kiss is soft at first and then escalates very quickly. He is hard in no time at all and we end up on the bed, naked and groping and clawing. He has helped me shower a few times when I was so weak that I probably would have passed out and split my head open on the tiles, so he’s seen my scar before. I try not to think about it when his hands and lips trace over it, nor about my ball being just a piece of plastic now. But he has seen me puke and worse and I know he will remember how disgusting that was, if not now, then tomorrow morning at the latest.

I want it. I want to have sex. I want to have sex with Brian. I want _him_. But nothing’s happening. I’m maybe half-hard, if that, and no matter what he does, it doesn’t go any further than that. Eventually he gives up and flops on his back with a frustrated groan.

“I’m sorry.” I hate that my body won’t cooperate. How can I feel so horny and not get hard? It’s bad enough that I can’t jerk off in the shower, but this is _Brian_. He once brought me to within three quick strokes of an orgasm just by talking dirty to me.

“It’s all right.”

“It’s _not_ all right.”

“It takes time.”

Time. Isn’t that what this whole thing has been about since I got sick? The fact that I’m running out of time? That’s the reason I threw him out and what makes me think that anything has changed at all? I’m better now and he’s already here less. And this will just force him to stay longer because he always wants to fix things. But once I’m up and running again, so to speak, he will be back to doing what he always does, tricking and behaving like he’s single. I can’t even blame him for refusing to acknowledge that we’re in a relationship any longer, because I broke up with him, didn’t I? And now I can’t even give him the one thing that always worked between us. I might crave all the other parts of our relationship as well, but I doubt that he does. I have to tell him that he doesn’t have to stay to get me over this – if I ever will. But I can’t. I just can’t because it will kill me when he leaves. Just a few more days maybe.

I turn away from him and try not to cry.

 

*******    

 

I don’t trust him. No, that’s not true, I don’t trust this fucking disease. I can see that he’s getting better, but somewhere at the back of my mind there’s always the nagging worry that it’s temporary, that it will come back just when I start to relax a little. Maybe that will always be with me now. After all, I still check that he’s put his seatbelt on every time we’re in the car together.

For a while I’m so relieved and so focused on his physical well-being that I don’t notice the changes. That we’re not fucking is natural, however difficult that is for me. I know that this kind of surgery will affect his sex life, he told me as much, and I’m trying really hard to be patient. But being around him and not fucking him is killing me. He’s so beautiful and sometimes I watch him just walking across the room, minding his own business, and I have to force myself to look away because I just want to fuck the shit out of him.

So it takes me a while to realize that there’s no contact of any kind. After the accident he was kind of clingy, always touching, wanting to hold hands, wanting to sit practically in my lap. I didn’t mind it so much, in fact I liked that there was something I could do for him. There is none of that now. Even an accidental touch causes him to shy away from me as if he hates it. Never mind that there aren’t any showers together. He always loved those. Fuck, _I_ always loved those.

Very gradually I come to the conclusion that he meant it when he told me to leave. I’ve been deluding myself that it had anything to do with him being sick. He simply had enough of me. Maybe it was the syphilis after all or the baby. Or maybe it was Jon. He seems to be around a lot and he has a knack for timing it so that I’m not there when he is. And he always leaves shortly after I arrive.

I know I’m thinking way too much about this. I’m just hoping that whatever is wrong, is something other than him wanting to be with someone else. Everything else may be fixable and I want to fix it. For once, I’m not simply shrugging it off or walking away. It was bad enough for that week or so after he made me leave, but the idea of losing him for good has made me very aware of where my priorities lie. And that they were a little askew before it all happened. More than a little.

Justin has no reason to keep me around any longer. He’s very capable of looking after himself again and if he doesn’t tell me to leave, that must mean that he doesn’t want me to go, right? But then again, why is he so remote? Is he worried that I will pounce on him the moment he touches me in any way? Maybe I simply haven’t given him any reason to think differently of me before now. So I’m being patient. He may not be ready yet.

On New Year’s Eve it all comes to a head. I kiss Justin at midnight. I’ve always done that. It might be a leftover from my childhood. My grandmother always said that you should end the old year the way you want the new one to continue. I’m a little drunk, so it’s easier for me to overcome my worry that he will reject me if I try. And then I just can’t stop. Justin seems to be getting into it as well, thank fuck. And as a bonus, after we finish, I realize that Jon has been watching us. That’ll teach him.

After the party I can’t help wondering if anything’s changed. Ah well, I’ll never know if I don’t try. When I come out of the bathroom, he’s just staring at me. So far, whenever I paraded naked around the loft, he’s always looked away, so I toned it down a little. But now he seems very interested. My grin is mostly relief, although I notice that there’s no tenting of his trousers just yet. It makes me hesitate a little. This is a strange position for me to be in: I’ve never before wanted anyone more than they wanted me. But eventually I can’t stop myself and I have to kiss him and he seems to be keen enough.

It’s the first time I have a good view – and touch – of his scar and his ball. It’s not so bad. In time it will fade and be barely noticeable. It’s not a flaw, it’s a symbol that he’s survived. How can I not be glad about that? I kiss him everywhere and suck him without much reaction. He’s not getting hard properly. He warned me about that, but I think he just needs time to get used to being touched there. Maybe it’s even a little tender still. It will be all right.

And then it isn’t. Eventually I have to admit defeat. This is just not happening tonight and I’m so fucking horny. It’s not that I haven’t had sex since it’s all started. I have. I haven’t looked for it, but if a guy has given me the come on, I’ve acted on it. At least I have since he got better. Before that, a guy would have had to sit on me and tear my clothes off for me to even realize what he wanted because my head was too full of worry to notice. Lindsay pointed out a few guys to me during class and couldn’t understand why I always rushed off as soon as the lecture was finished. Was it really so hard to fathom that I just wanted to get home to make sure that he was okay?

But this is Justin. Apart from turning me on like crazy without even trying, sex with him is different. It’s hotter and more tender at the same time. It means something different or rather, it means something, period. I tell him that it just takes time. What else can I say? The alternative would be to ask him if it’s me and I’m not opening that can of worms. But when he turns away from me, I have my answer anyway.

I suppose I’m just stubborn. He will have to tell me. I won’t let him get away with anything less. We try a few more times to have sex over the next few weeks but with no success. And he seems reluctant somehow, as if he doesn’t really want me. Well, as long as he doesn’t say it out loud, I’m not going anywhere. But I can’t help wondering if Jon would have more success – or has had already. I have never, _ever_ failed to satisfy a guy I was having sex with. It must be because Justin doesn’t fancy me any longer. And I feel a little sick all the time.

Nobody is more surprised than I am when I get a call-up for an interview an Kennedy & Lyons at the end of January. I really thought I had scuttled my chances there with exposing their representative to an STD. Lyons was never likely to broadcast that fact, but he must have some influence on the proceedings and I would have expected him to prevent me from ever seeing the inside of their offices. Maybe his bosses are really that impressed with me. It’s another thing Justin did for me. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t proclaimed to the world that the Brown Athletics campaign was mine.

They are. I’m in New York for three days, all organized and paid for and at the interview I get the impression that they already made up their minds in my favor before I even got there. Adam Lyons is on a business trip and I’m happy not to see him. Instead I spend my two nights clubbing until the early hours. Hey, I’m young, I can fuck all night and still impress people during the interview.

As I’m sitting on the plane with the contract in my pocket, I go through my options. Going to New York has been a dream of mine since I was sixteen and went there with Debbie and Michael to visit Vic. When Vic was sick and I was sitting with him, we often spoke about it and while he loved it there, he told me repeatedly that there are other things in life more important than where you live.

I didn’t get it at the time, but I think I do now. Nearly losing Justin twice – or three times, if you count not being together anymore – gave me food for thought. All I could think was _please, don’t let him die_ – for over a month. It was a familiar mantra and it made me realize how much I want him. Every day since then and, if I’m honest, every day almost since the day we first met, I want to be with him. It scares the shit out of me, because it gives him so much power over me. I’m no longer responsible for my own happiness and I hate that. But what’s the alternative? Fighting it and feeling the same way in the end anyway? I’ve been doing that for four years and it doesn’t work. Because I’m no less scared when I’m not with him, when I pretend that I don’t love him. All that does is make me _look_ stronger. And since when do I care what other people think of me?

And there, I said it, even if only in my head. I love him. That wasn’t so bad and has been true for a long time. So why don’t I act on it? Nothing else will make me happy. I’ve tried everything and I had practically given in already, and just wanted to enjoy my last year at college, before I shift my priorities to work and Justin. But basically I’d already made up my mind. It wasn’t particularly difficult, especially after I got bored during a blowjob a couple of times. If I’m bored with it, if it’s not enough anymore, why am I still doing it? I might as well stop now, if that’s what it takes. Justin and I may not last and I can’t give any guarantees, and neither can he. All I can say is that I love him and I want to be with him for as long as I feel this way. And as long as he feels the same way, of course. If he still does.

So, when he goes to New York for his art, then maybe we can go together and have the time of our lives. Or if he doesn’t want to go with me, then I can still go and at least live that part of my dream. And if he wants me but not New York? Then I will just have to bite the bullet and stay in Pittsburgh. It’s not so bad as long as he’s around. I want to go to New York, but I want Justin more. I would have considered it a sacrifice until very recently. Now it’s just a compromise, which you have to make from time to time when you’re with somebody. I have to get my priorities right. If it’s a choice, he wins hands down.

When I open the loft door, I’m just in time to see Justin extracting himself from Jon’s arms. They’re standing in the middle of the loft and I don’t think they’ve been fucking because Justin looks more upset than aroused. Or they tried to fuck and got the same result that we usually do. That would be something at least. Or not, because it doesn’t give me any comfort at all. I leave my bag by the door in case I need to make a quick exit and stroll into the kitchen.

“Sorry, guys, am I interrupting something? Do you want me to go back out, so you can carry on?”

Jon looks at Justin. “Do you want me to stay for this?”

“No, I call you later.”

Jon smiles at him and then has the nerve to smile at me on his way out. I want to see a smirk there, but it’s soft and friendly. This is why I never admit to my feelings out loud, because it leaves you open to all sorts of reactions from other people, like ridicule or, in this case, pity. I’m really not equipped to deal with any of that. Give me behaving like an asshole and make other people hate you over this any day.

Justin comes closer and stands next to one of the stools at the kitchen counter. “It was just a hug of encouragement.”

“You’re free to hug or do whomever you want.”

“I know,” he sighs. “You never left me in any doubt about that.”

“Would you rather I told you what to do?”

“I would rather you cared.”

“Why? It wouldn’t make any difference, would it? Or would it be more fun if you knew that it bothers me?”

“Does it?”

I pour myself a coffee, load it with sugar and take my time stirring it. Didn’t I decide less than an hour ago that I would do whatever it takes to be with Justin? Well, here’s my chance. Only it feels different when I’m convinced that nothing I will say will make a difference. I’m not flaying myself open for nothing. Not even for Justin.

“Why don’t you just say what you have to say?”

“Because I don’t particularly want to say it.” He does look upset, which means that I will hate what he’s going to say. Like I didn’t know that already.

“Then don’t. I’m not forcing you to talk. Talking’s overrated.”

“How about _you_ talk for a change?”

I snort a laugh. “Didn’t I just say it’s overrated?”

“Did you get the job?”

“Of course.”

“When do you start?”

“The contract’s for July.”

He nods and pushes some spilled sugar together on the counter with his index finger, then spreads it again to draw a circle in it. I watch him, mesmerized, and try to make my mind go blank and everything else, too, while I’m at it. There’s no way that this conversation will go in any direction I would want it to go.

“So your mind’s made up?” He’s not looking at me and that’s never a good sign.

“More or less.”

“I’m proud of you, Brian, and I’m happy for you because I know this is what you’ve wanted for a long time…” There is a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence. I can hear it, but it’s a long time coming, a lifetime. _Just put me out of my misery already. You’re making me fucking nervous._ “…but I’m not sitting around waiting for you to leave. I’m not putting my life on hold for another six months.”

There, he said it and it unleashes my anger immediately. It’s a gut reaction. “Well, no, we can’t have that, can we? What would Jon say?”

Justin pushes the sugar towards me with the flat of his hand. It kind of looks like he means to shove it at me, but it’s way too light to travel even halfway across the counter. I’m probably lucky he’s not playing with something heavy. “Will you shut up about Jon, for fuck’s sake?”

“I would, but he’s kinda always around, isn’t he? Especially when I’m not.”

Justin is seething now. “I made a mistake, Brian! I should never have had sex with him and I’ve apologized for it. And yes, I admit I slept with him once after you and I broke up. He’s nice to me and he loves me, which is more than you can say.” He has himself under control again pretty quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout. You were wonderful when I was sick. Just like after the accident. But I can’t be sick all the time. I need you to care when I’m just me as well. I need more, Brian. A lot more. And I know you’re not ready for that and it’s not your fault, but I don’t have time to wait for you anymore. I’m sorry.”

He waits and he looks at me expectantly and I can’t quite process what he’s saying. He’s not making himself very clear, but he’s also doesn’t look as if he’s going to add anything. Is he saying that he’s found somebody else who’s giving him what he needs or is he saying that he would give it another go if I changed? Is it too late already or not?

“So this is not about Jon?”

His face falls as if I made some stupid joke or lame innuendo. “No, Brian, this is not about Jon. It never was. But that’s all you care about, isn’t it? That I may have found somebody. That you’ve been replaced. Your ego can’t allow that. Is that the reason you’re still here? You only want me because you think I’m with someone else? So you can prove that no one’s better than you? It’s not a competition. You won. It’s still you. It always was and maybe even always will be. Congratulations.”

He turns and makes his way into the bathroom and I’m trying hard to keep my temper under control. That was goodbye, right? Only he can’t just come out and say it. He has to wrap it up in some weird-ass, convoluted, protracted, complicated… _It’s still you._

Not so fast. That wasn’t a ‘someone else makes me happy, please go’, it was a ‘you don’t make me happy, please go’. Thank fuck. I don’t care if he thinks I’m fucked up. I would have to be incredibly stupid not to realize that I am. But as long as he’s not saying that he wants to be with someone else, I can change that.

Justin is in the shower when I get into the bathroom. Of course he is, it’s his safe place. He doesn’t hear me until I shout at him over the noise of the water. “Are you going to New York or not?”

He turns and stares at me. “What?”

I open the shower door and step in, barely taking the time to take off my shoes.

“What are you doing? You’ll get soaked.”

“Yeah, water does that. Answer the question. Are you planning on going to New York?”

“Why would I?”

“Because you want to be an artist and New York is where the scene is. And you had that article in _Art Forum_.”

“It’s hardly going to make me a household name. In fact I’ve way more chance of making it as an artist here, where there’s less competition. I would sink like lead in New York.”

“I want to go.”

“I know that. Will you, please, leave me to shower in peace?”

“No, you _don’t_ know. I went to that interview because I thought you were going to New York. I thought… I was hoping… we’d go together, get a place together, be together… as a couple.”

He looks a little stunned. “I’m just the guy you fuck more than once, remem…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Justin, will you stop being such a twat! You knew full well what I meant when I said that. I know you did. Don’t pretend that you didn’t.”

“Actually, I thought I did, but I can never be sure with you, can I? I always have to guess and interpret and read between the lines and then translate it for other people. And I’m tired of it, Brian. Say what you mean. Tell me how you feel. And don’t deny it front of our friends at least. I don’t think it’s too much to ask after four years. If you think I know what you meant when you said that, then why can’t you just say it? Is it like curse that must not be spoken aloud?”

I push him back against the shower wall and press against him so I can speak in his ear. In the end it’s easier this way, even though the water makes my clothes cling to my back unpleasantly. “I _meant_ that you are my partner, the guy I have a relationship with that goes way, way beyond some meaningless fuck, the one I want to be with. I meant that I love you.” And because this is Justin and with Justin you can never be sure of anything, I pull back a little and look at him. “I love you.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, then wraps his arms around my neck and kisses me. _Yes!_ I wish we could take this further, but for now the kiss will have to do. He’s pressed against the wall, so when he wants to stop, he has to push me away. I have to force myself to let go.

“Thank you for saying it, but I’m sorry, it’s not enough.” He ducks under my arm and leaves the shower.

Now _I’m_ stunned, to say the least. Wasn’t this what he always wanted? Me admitting how I feel, a commitment, living together? It’s not enough? What the fuck? I feel annoyed, but I won’t let that surface because that will make me storm out. I won’t do that, not after I’ve come this far. So I switch the water off and leave my sodden clothes on the shower floor. Justin has wrapped a towel around his hips and is standing by the door, ready for round two.

“What more do you want?” I wrap a towel around my own hips. Ordinarily, being naked during an argument doesn’t faze me. In fact, it usually gives me an advantage, but I feel exposed enough as it is.

“It’s easy to say it. Well, okay, maybe not so easy for you, but it’s just words. And I admit that before I got sick, it would have been enough, but now I need more.”

“More? Okay, how about this? I love you. I’m in love with you. I want you. I want to be with you. You’re beautiful. You’re smart. You’re funny. You light up the room. You light up my life. My life is not worth living without you. You’re the one. You complete me. Oh, for fuck’s sake, Justin, feel free to stop me before I grow a twat.” I can’t quite pull it off. I’m trying, but this is just not me. There’s a strong touch of sarcasm in it.

He chuckles a little, then smiles softly. “I love you. You have no idea how much. But you’re missing the point.”

“Good. Because I don’t think I could keep this up. What _is_ the point?”

“The point is why you’re saying it. You thought you would lose me and maybe it scared you a little and now you’re saying what you think I want to hear. But I need you to mean it. Not just because I was sick or because you think Jon is a threat to you. You always want me when you can’t have me. You just need to know that you can have me anytime you want. But I can’t be sick all the time or find fuck buddies to scare you into toeing the line. I need you to mean it even when everything’s fine. Every day.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, and next thing you’re gonna propose.” He looks worried for a moment. “Don’t. Just don’t. This is not about that kind of commitment.”

I’m relieved to hear that because there’s no way we’re ever getting married. I have to draw a line somewhere. But I feel lost. I really don’t know what he wants anymore. I lift my hands in a what-the-fuck gesture and drop them again.

“I love you and you love me, but we need to want the same things, Brian. Otherwise love is not enough. I’ve always made allowances because you’re so young, but I’m thirty-three now and I could have died for the second time in my life and I’m just not willing to wait any longer. If I don’t try and find the things that I want now, I might not ever have them. I would have waited for you to grow up, probably indefinitely, but this was my second wake-up call. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t ignore that. I’m out of time.”

“Then tell me what you want and we’ll take it from there.”

“I…” He tilts his head a little and looks at me thoughtfully. “No, you tell me what you want first.”

He doesn’t trust me. He still thinks I’m saying all this just because I think he wants to hear it. He’s right in the sense that I would never have said it if I didn’t feel it was needed. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t mean it. And now I feel like I’m in the middle of the most important test in my life. It’s very tempting to just throw out anything he might want to hear, just to be on the safe side. At this point I’m willing to do anything, be anything he needs. But in the long run, that would just defer the problem to a later date.

“I want to wake up with you in the morning. I want to go through my day, knowing that you will be there in the evening and all night. I want us to live together. And I want to go to New York and I want you to come with me. But I can live with staying here, if you don’t want to go.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to do anything just for me. I want you to do things because it’s what you want to do. I don’t want you to change for me.”

“I know. You never tried to change me. To find the right person, you don’t find someone and then try and turn them into what you want. You find someone who already _is_ what you want. You always knew that we’re the perfect fit. You were just waiting for the pieces to slot into place. Now they have. Tell me what you want and I’ll tell you if it fits.”

“I want to be with someone who wants to be with just me. I want to be enough.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, pretty much. If we include admitting it as well.”

“No tricking?”

“No tricking.”

“Justin, there’re some things I can’t promise you. I can’t promise that my feelings for you will still be the same tomorrow. I can’t imagine that they won’t, but I can’t promise it. And neither can you if you’re honest. I can’t promise that I’ll be easy to live with. And I can’t promise you that I’ll never fuck another guy. At the moment, I feel like I don’t want to, but neither you nor I know the future. I don’t want the occasional slip-up ruin everything for us just because we make promises here today that we can’t keep.”

“Define ‘occasional’.”

“What?”

“Define ‘occasional slip-up’ because I’m not giving you a blank check to carry on as you were.”

“I won’t go out prowling anymore. I won’t be looking for fucks. And I will think long and hard before I take anyone up on an offer.”

“I imagine you get offers every day.”

“More than one. But I don’t _need_ to trick. I just always did. Didn’t think much about it. You were right: I got scared, not just a little, but a fucking lot. But all it did was open my eyes and look at what was already there.”

His smile is soft and then he turns serious. “And if I can never get it up again?”

“You will.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“What are you? Five? On the remote chance that your cock is out of commission for good, I have to inform you that you will be giving a lot of blowjobs in the future.”

“Would you trick then?”

“Jesus, Justin… yes, I would. Saying anything else would be unrealistic, don’t you think?”

He nods a few times. He has always faced facts, so I don’t think my answer surprises him. Maybe it was a trick question – no pun intended.

“I feel unclean.”

“Huh?”

“I feel kind of disgusted with myself. When I was sick, I was throwing up everywhere. Even over myself once or twice. And… I can’t understand how you can even look at me. Never mind touch me.”

Sometimes he’s really pathetic. For someone so beautiful, he sure as fuck has a lot of body image issues.

“I don’t know if I should tell you this because it makes me sound like a creep, but I fancied you even when you were covered in sick. Well, not _while_ you were covered in sick, but in the shower afterwards.” I shrug. “I’m a guy. I can’t look at you and not think about fucking you.”

He chuckles. “Pervert.”

“You love it really.”

“I love _you_.”

It’s good to hear him say it with so much conviction. He has said it in the past, once or twice, but always tentatively. I suppose I always just chose to believe that he was unsure himself, rather than uncertain and worried about my reaction. And quite rightly so. I wasn’t ready for it, not so much his feelings but my own. Because then I would have had to deal not only with my fear of what will happen when he stops, but also with the fact that maybe I’m a little more conservative at heart than I would like to admit. I’m long past the point where I find it hot watching him fuck other people or even know that he does. Now I know that you can’t deny yourself happiness for fear that it might be over one day. Because now I know that my regrets would be about my cowardice and not about admitting to my feelings.

I move closer and bend my head down, waiting for him to meet me halfway. The kiss is soft and desperate at the same time. This would normally be the point where I would expect us to start fucking each other’s brains out. Of course, that isn’t possible at the moment and it’s incredibly  frustrating for both of us. I didn’t realize that he’s struggling with me seeing him so weak and sick. I never thought about it. To me it was just part of his illness, which scared the shit out of me when it was going on and now only makes me feel relieved that he came out of it at the other end.

But maybe part of the problem is that I didn’t realize, or willfully ignored, a lot of things. I always liked that I didn’t have to tell him things, like how I feel about him and how I see my life developing. I made way too many assumptions and it made it easier for me to cope with wanting things I felt I shouldn’t want or were unattainable. Now I know that things are only unattainable if the worst happens. Now that he’s better, everything is up for grabs.

He moves back a little and strokes the hair at the back of my neck, smiling up at me. “Pieces slotting into place, eh? Where did that come from? That’s clever.”

I roll in my lips because, now that it’s over, I feel a little embarrassed. My first instinct is to withdraw and to deny that I said anything, or at least that I meant it. But that just won’t cut it any longer. I will have to learn to trust Justin with my feelings, because I know that I can. So far, he has always been careful with them. So I smile back at him and put my forehead against his. “Learned from the master.”

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

**PART  TWELVE**

Re-negotiating a longstanding relationship is much harder than negotiating a new one. There are so many established patterns to fall back into. And when the other person is Brian Kinney, it’s even harder. It’s not as if he suddenly turned all talkative and lovey-dovey after what I call our ‘bathroom showdown’. He is still as taciturn and sarcastic as ever. And I have to admit that I’m surprised at how much _I’m_ struggling with the new situation. I have to remind myself every day not to slide back into my old behavior of watching and hoping instead of asking or just doing.

Only everything is different somehow. There’s something in the way he looks at me or how he touches me. It’s as if he’s suddenly lifted a veil and I can see how he feels about me in every look. And then there is the amount of casual touching that he’s doing. He has always been very tactile. But it was always in its time and place. So playing with my hair while watching TV has always been okay, whereas standing behind me as I’m cooking with his arms wrapped around me, while he’s talking to me, is new.

At first I just hold still and enjoy when he does it, like I always did. There is still that fear in me that he will bolt if I react, but that gradually subsides. What takes longer is the confidence to initiate it. One day I walk past him as he’s sitting at the dining table and I stroke his hair a little, then withdraw my hand quickly. It’s a conditioned reaction. But as I’m still admonishing myself in my head for my cowardice, his hand comes up and pushes my still lingering hand back into his hair without ever looking up from his book. I have to ask myself how much easier our life would have been if just one of us had been braver.

Of course, the real problem we have at the moment is that our touching doesn’t lead anywhere. We try to have sex after our talk and we try almost every day after that. _Try_ being the operative word. It’s incredibly frustrating, not just because I want to have sex desperately but can’t. I also worry what it does to Brian. He’s not used to not having sex and I almost wish I hadn’t asked him not to trick. Now that he has promised to forsake as many others as he possibly can, I’m worried that he’ll regret it. I don’t actually know if he tricks still. I wouldn’t hold it against him, because I can’t ask a twenty-one-year-old to live without sex for weeks on end. But I don’t ask and he doesn’t say. If he does trick right now, I would approve, but I can’t work out when he would, unless he spends his time at college fucking rather than going to lectures.

And I know that he thinks my problem has something to do with him, that somehow he’s doing something wrong or I don’t find him hot anymore. If only he knew! But no amount of telling him that is going to make him believe it. That’s just Brian for you.

Despite of what he said, he refuses to fuck me or let me blow him. We tried both only the once to see if it would be enough to get me going, but when it didn’t yield any results, he refused to do it again. I suppose he has his pride and I find it incredibly sweet, but it puts added pressure on me. I so want to do this for him. So much so that I would fake it if I could. Anything would be better than seeing him so frustrated and trying to hide it. Every time we fail, his eyes get hooded and that veil comes back up. I know he’s doing that for me, so that I don’t see his disappointment, because he thinks this must be worse for me than it is for him. Susanna says it’s only a matter of giving it time and to try not to think about it and just let it happen. Yeah, right. I can think about almost nothing else.

So everything is different. What was missing in our relationship before is now the only thing that’s there. And what was prevalent is gone. I think we both know that this is one thing that will eventually split us apart. It’s unrealistic to think that this situation is sustainable indefinitely. I suppose it’s only because we’re both trying so hard to find our footing that it hasn’t done any damage already.

Other things are the same but different. When we talk about New York, it’s no longer painful. Brian talking about his plans doesn’t make me feel excluded like it used to. He wants me to come with him. He made that very clear. He doesn’t need to say ‘we’ in every sentence for me to know that I’m part of the package.

We have a long discussion about going. It’s an amazing opportunity for him and eventually we decide to move there for the five years of his contract. Ultimately he wants to open his own advertising agency and he knows he can’t do that without experience and he can’t do in New York. So we will give it five years and then probably return to Pittsburgh. But who knows what will be in five years? I try not to make any long-term plans any longer. We’re keeping the loft at any rate.

I’m more excited about going to New York than I thought I would be. I’m planning on finishing my degree there by doing a year of full-time study, and then get a job. Meanwhile I will paint and check out the art scene. But what I really want to do is get into animation. All my courses at PIFA were graphics heavy because this has been a dream of mine for a long time. Painting is just something I do for fun. I’m also hoping that I can touch up _Rage_ a bit and maybe shop it around for publication. Brian suggests to wait a little until he’s made some contacts I could use. And, of course, he wants to design an ad campaign for it.

But what I think will be really good for us, is that Brian will be working and we will be living mainly on his money and in his apartment. A role reversal will make us true partners and it will be good for his confidence and good for my perception of him. I will no longer see him as the teenager I met four years ago, who was so fucked-up that it brought out my natural instinct to protect – among other things. We will finally be equals.

We’re planning to be in Pittsburgh a lot. All our friends and family are here. We don’t expect any of them to be pleased when they hear about our move. Naturally, Daphne is the most supportive. She sees all my arguments and agrees with me and, let’s face it, out of all our friends, she’s the only one with the means to fly out to visit us a lot.

Jon just nods and says, “Wow.” in that quiet way that he has. He gave up any designs on me when I didn’t break up with Brian after he came back from New York. If he’s disappointed, I can’t tell. I just know that he’s a great friend, whom I’m hoping to keep, despite the distance and I’m really surprised that he gets on well with Brian, too. Jon has recently started an affair with one of the professors at PIFA, who is so hot he makes anybody, male or female, doubt that monogamy is a desirable concept. Jon calls it ‘casual for now’ and who am I to tell him that inappropriate relationships aren’t a good idea or never work out? 

My mother is devastated. And angry.

“It’s all about Brian,” she says in a tight voice. “Like always.”

“It’s about his job, yes,” I admit. “But I want to go as well. Try my luck in New York. See something new and then maybe be more settled afterwards.”

“But you will have to rely on him, sweetheart.”

“Like he had to rely on me in the past.” That’s not quite true because I still have money left from my trust fund, enough to see me through a year or two if need be.

“Well, you’re reliable. He isn’t. He might lose his job or get sucked into the New York gay scene. Or he’ll try and control your life, now that you’re dependent on him.”

I’m already starting to lose my patience a little. “Make up your mind, Mother, which one is it? He’ll lose interest in me because of other guys or he’ll have too much interest and make me his slave? You can’t have it both ways.”

“Honey,” she says in that voice that she has when she wants to get her point across but knows that I won’t want to hear it. “You know that he’s unreliable. And I know that you love him, but you have to face the fact that he doesn’t love you. He’s just using you. He always did. Going with him is madness.”

And my escalating anger runs away with me again. My retort is rather loud. “He looked after me for weeks, Mom. He cleaned up after me every day and it wasn’t pretty. And he never once complained. What more does he have to do to prove that he loves me? I think you just wish that I’d find someone who cooks and cleans for me while I go out to work. You know what? That’s never going to happen. Because I’m _gay_! I’m never going to have a little wife to look after me. I don’t want one. I wouldn’t even want one if I were straight. And I don’t want a gay imitation of one. And I’d thank you to mind your own business from now on.”

I storm out of her condo, ignoring her calling my name a few times. Mom always seemed to like my previous boyfriends, but now I’m wondering if that was only because they were never a threat to her. I never even kissed anyone in front of her or held hands and on the few occasions that I took a guy home, we would sit with a few inches between us. She must have known that I didn’t really love any of them, so she found it easy to accept them. Brian is the only one who ever changed anything between Mom and me. Because he doesn’t hold back in front of her and makes her face up to the fact that I’m gay by supplying the evidence. And because I love him more than anyone.

In the car I’m still fuming and thinking how good it will feel to get away from Pittsburgh for a while. Maybe Brian isn’t the only one who needs to grow up. He doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody, except maybe me and that he has done, emphatically. Thinking of Brian, of how much better he is than people give him credit for and how much innate trust I’ve always had in him because he was the only one I trusted enough to look after me when I was sick – all while I’m so angry with my mother – causes a very unexpected reaction. _Oh my God_.

I break every speed limit to get back home, where I’m incredible relieved to find Brian sitting over his books. He looks up and frowns when I stomp into the loft. “I take it your visit didn’t go w…?” He doesn’t get any further than that because I grab his hand and pull him up off his chair and towards the bed.

“Fuck me, right now.”

He looks down at my hard-on and has the biggest grin on his face. I don’t think we ever got undressed quite that quickly before. Then he gets down on his knees and kisses my stomach almost reverently before he blows me and it has never been this wonderful. Relief and joy make it the best orgasm I ever had. And when he fucks me afterwards, I can’t believe that I didn’t have this for so long. How did I ever get through that? Come to think of it, how did he ever get through that? I come with his name on my lips.

“You should visit your mother more often,” he smirks afterwards.

“Yeah.” Or not. I can’t believe I shouted at her. But then again, it was long overdue. I may be doing her an injustice because she has always tried to be supportive. It’s just that I could never shift the feeling that deep down she wished things were different. Either way, I won’t let anyone interfere in my life any longer.

Brian and I make up for lost time for weeks afterwards. It seems that anything can set us off, a touch, a word, a look. We don’t care where or when and I feel almost like a teenager again. And Brian finally gets his wish of fucking me in an alleyway. I find it hot and exhilarating and don’t even care that we almost get caught by a cop.

  

Everything gets slowly set in motion for our move to New York. We tell everyone at one of Debbie's dinners. As expected, nobody really approves. Michael and Lindsay freak out and it isn’t difficult to see how worried and upset they are about losing Brian amongst all the barely coherent arguments they have. I wish they would get over their crush already and Brian seems to agree, although he does have a long talk with Michael in the garden.

The rest of them let me know in various ways that they think I’m mad to leave everything behind to go off with him – well, except Vic, who thanks me for some unexplained reason. Although I must say that looking after me for weeks has raised Brian’s standing within the family somewhat. Maybe they finally realize that they’ve misjudged him. And I realize that for far too long I‘ve worried needlessly about how my relationship with Brian looks to other people. Just like he was concerned about his stud image, I was always concerned about looking like a lovesick fool in front of our friends and family. What do they know anyway? I’m taking the best part of my life with me.

We celebrate Brian’s graduation in a ‘our’ restaurant and have a long, _looong_ session of glorious sex afterwards. Then we talk about the apartment that Kennedy & Lyons found for us. It’s small by New York standards, but in a great area for both his work and my school. I switch our cell phones back on while he lights a cigarette and they both go wild with text messages. I get a call before I can read any of them.

It’s Melanie. She admonishes me first for switching my phone off and I before I can get a reply in, she tells me that Lindsay went into labor after her graduation and the baby has arrived. It’s a boy.

“We’ll be right there.” I flip the phone shut. Brian is already getting dressed after reading his messages. I hurry to catch up with him.

“I have a son,” he grins.

Lindsay and Brian’s  relationship has cooled down considerably, to such an extent that they’re barely more than good acquaintances. When Brian and I finally talked about it, he was at first highly amused that Lindsay had thought he would willingly help her get pregnant, but then it got him thinking. Maybe ‘the mishap’ with the condom, as Lindsay calls it, wasn’t a mishap. After all, in more than four years of sometimes very vigorous fucking, none of our condoms ever broke. For a while, he just shrugged it off, because, as he rightly said, it wouldn’t change the fact that she’s pregnant if our suspicions were true. But over time he has withdrawn from her. He really doesn’t like getting played. We’ll probably never know if she did something untoward or if it was simply the accident it appeared to be, but if her goal was to chain him to her with a baby, her plan backfired spectacularly.

She often tried to guilt Brian into more contact during her pregnancy. She would have wanted him to come to all the doctor’s appointments with her and Melanie if she’d had her way. When she heard about New York, she went on and on about how much the baby would suffer without having a father around. She even managed to cry rather prettily. Brian just shrugged it off. I think that was also the point where Melanie realized how much had changed between them.

One afternoon in April, Brian and I sat down with Lindsay and Melanie to thrash out an agreement with regards to the child. It was a curious situation, with Brian giving the impression that he didn’t give a shit and leaving it to me to negotiate on his behalf, while Lindsay talked nonstop, pushing for him spending as much time with the baby as possible. She would have put in a clause to force him to visit if she could have done, I’m sure. In the end, Melanie and I agreed on a reasonable solution, which gives Melanie parental rights and allows Brian visitation on a rising scale. When the child gets older, he can stay with Brian at times. I’m not sure if Brian will even want that, but it’s there if he does. With Brian having no longer much of an interest in Lindsay, Melanie was more amenable than anticipated. I always knew she’s the reasonable one.

I’m sure Melanie would rather that Brian stayed away from the hospital, but Lindsay wants him there, so she relented. She always does. We’re running down the hospital corridor, dodging trolleys and people and laughing. This is very exciting – for both of us.

The room is full of Lindsay and Melanie’s lesbian friends, who glare at us when we burst in. Lindsay looks sweaty and exhausted, but proud and happy. Maybe this will be the kick she needs to get her priorities right. I can only stare at the small bundle in her arms. Brian’s son. That makes me almost a stepfather, doesn’t it?

Brian just lets out a heartfelt, “Oh my God.” Then he moves closer, his eyes transfixed on the baby.

Lindsay beams up at him. “You wanna hold him?”

Brian oh so carefully takes the baby and retorts Melanie’s admonishment to be careful and not to drop him with a sarcastic, “That’s just what I was planning to do.” But his mind is on other things. I call his name and take a picture of the baby and him, smiling softly. I know I will treasure this photo forever because Brian just looks so amazed, almost dazed, as if he can’t quite believe it.

“So what do you think? Gus or Abraham?” Lindsay looks at him, willing him to make a decision in her favor.

Brian completely ignores Lindsay’s pleading eyes and looks back at me. “What do you think?” He takes a step closer to me and I move over to him until the baby is huddled between us. I love that he wants to share this with me. And in front of other people, too. It’s still so new and exhilarating each time he does it.

I nod and mouth _Gus_ at him because it’s not really my place to make this decision, but I wouldn’t lumber the poor child with a name like Abraham either.

“Gus it is.” He smiles down at the child. “Hello, Gus, how are you liking your first night on Earth?”

All this time he told me that he was going to stay out of the baby’s life as much as he could and I’m sure he meant it. But looking at him now, I know that Gus will never want for anything because Brian has just given his heart unconditionally. I recognize Brian’s love when I see it.

And what do you know, he’s finally grown up.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.


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